With Lying Eyes
by PossumSoul
Summary: A dark, deeply buried secret from Castle's past resurfaces just as a case involving someone close to her puts him at odds with Beckett. (Set late Season 3)
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This would have been my second idea, but I have this one mapped out already and am too exited to write it to let it fall to the wayside._

 _Summary: A dark secret from Castle's past resurfaces just as a high-profile case puts him at odds with Beckett. (Set late season 3, post-Countdown but pre- To Love and Die in LA.)_

* * *

"Ethan Wilson, you're under arrest for the murder of Thomas Hughes."

Beckett reads off his rights as she tightens the handcuffs around his wrists then pulls him off the wall of the closed down shop just outside of a park on the other end of town. She leads the suspect out with Castle close behind her, handing him off to Esposito, who's just coming out from a corner with his rifle hanging from a sling on his chest. "Where're your friends, Wilson?" Espo asks him as he takes his arm and pulling him outside into the sun.

Castle follows her outside as she re-holsters her weapon. "We have an APB out on them. We'll get them."

A group of three guys in their mid-twenties had broken into a cosmetics factory on a false tip that they had animals that they were using as test-subjects, intending to free them. Wilson wasn't their ring leader but was the one who ended up pulling the trigger on the elderly security guard. Having met in college in a group of peaceful animal rights activists, the group seemed mostly benign and was just a social club until a few of them got overheated when a jaded ex of one of the boys had lied and told them that there were animals being abused in the facility they broke into, hoping they would get sent to jail.

She had confessed with large, crocodile tears after Beckett had made her crack after just a few minutes in the box. They had tracked Wilson to this closed down shop just off the park, hoping that his two partners were inside. According to their social media, they were prone to violence and had a very public disdain for law enforcement.

"All this because of a jaded ex." Castle says as Esposito pushes Wilson down into the patrol car.

"Well, you should know all about that, Castle." Beckett cracks with a grin as she taps his arm with her elbow and moves through the park to question the owner of the building if he'd seen any sign of Wilson's partners. Him, along with the rest of the pedestrians are being kept a good distance.

Castle fights a smile as he watches her go if nothing else because of her grin as she jokes with him. He shakes his head and goes to join Esposito, who has the door open to the patrol car with Ryan next to him, questioning Wilson. "I'm telling you, I _don't_ know!"

"Really? You have no clue where the other two little rascals are?" Esposito asks with his hand resting on the stock of his rifle.

"We decided to split up whenever we heard that you were looking for us. They-" He cuts himself off and looks forward sternly.

"What's the matter, Wilson? Cat got your tongue?" Castle asks with a smirk.

Wilson just sends him a death glare and doesn't answer. "Alright, get him out of here." Esposito says and flings the door closed. "We'll get it out of him at the precinct."

Ryan follows Esposito out along the street as Castle looks toward the park. "Hey, Castle, where's Beckett?" Ryan asks as he turns around, walking backward.

He steps out into the sun and finds her walking with her eyes turned down to her phone, just stepping onto the sidewalk that makes for the border of the park. He lets out a grin and takes a step forward. He's only able to take two steps until he sees a dark sedan speed up behind her, the two doors on the driver side flying open with two men clad in black masks jumping out. " _Beckett!"_

The three stop as they watch one of the attackers thwack Beckett in the back of the head with a gun the other grabbing her shoulders and picking her up. Ryan and Esposito are quickly running forward, Castle behind them as the rear driver-side door closes with Beckett still inside. He can hear Ryan calling on his radio for back-up, but the car is already starting to take off.

Castle's heart and mind harden as the air in his lungs turns cold. He can't let this happen. "Give me the rifle, Esposito." He demands.

"No, Castle, we have plates. We-"

" _Give me the rifle!"_ He yells, his eyes following the dark sedan as it speeds down the street on the other side of the park.

"Castle!"

He can't take this anymore. He has to do something. Grunting out through his clenched teeth, he grasps Espo's sling in one hand and the grip of the assault rifle in the other, unclipping it from the sling and then takes off running as fast as he can, holding the rifle by the grip and the magazine well. "Castle!" Ryan calls.

"Castle!" Espo calls after him again.

But he's not listening as he pulls the charging handle back to see a round in the chamber, his legs sprinting quickly through the park. "What the hell is he doing?" Ryan asks Esposito.

But Esposito watches intently. There's something about Castle's movements that seem too familiar to ignore. Castle runs swiftly through the park as the dark sedan that just kidnapped Beckett nears an intersection.

Castle's eyes follow the sedan, his eyes tracing the outline of the driver as he makes his way down the street. He takes a few more long strides until he skids himself to a stop in the grass behind a park bench. He lifts the rifle up and presses the stock into his shoulder tightly, his hand gripping the top of the magazine well as he looks through the red-dot sight.

His heart is pounding, but he holds his breath as the sedan slows down to make the corner, still going a good twenty to twenty-five miles an hour. His eyes narrow as he takes aim and squeezes the trigger. An instant later, he looks down the sights to see a light cloud of red mist in the air puffing out of the windshield. The car goes hectic and speeds up until it rams into a streetlight, the horn starting to blare as it stops.

"Oh my god." Ryan says in shock and amazement as he watches Castle make the shot.

Esposito's brow furrows as he watches Castle's movements. There's only a handful of people who could have made that shot.

But Castle stays knelt down behind the bench, the barrel of the rifle resting against on the top for stability, waiting for the other to appear. And as the rear driver-side door opens, looking down the sight at the other suspect as he has his back turned toward the front of the car and starts to stumble out, his gun raised in Castle's direction.

The target fires a shot at Castle, making Ryan and Espo flinch at the sound. But as Espo's eyes train themselves on Castle, he doesn't move as he fires another shot, putting another quick double-tap to the center of the target's chest. The other suspect falls out of the car and onto the pavement. Castle lets himself breathe as he stands up and takes off running toward the sedan with its horn still blowing.

He can feel his heart again after icing himself over as he quickly moves around to the passenger side and opens the door. Beckett falls into his arms as the door opens. "Kate?" He asks softly.

He pulls her out and picks her up in his arms, her head falling away and her body limp. He quickly and carefully kneels down, lowering her body down to the pavement, his hand under her head as he feels her limp, unconscious head turn about in his hand.

His heart palpitates in his chest at the thought of losing her, the one woman he's felt he's ever really been in love with. His eyes close and he presses his fingers softly into her throat with his thumb petting her jaw line, feeling the bump of her pulse against them and he feels a deep, relaxing sense of relief wash over him just as Espo and Ryan come running up from around the other side of the car. "She needs a medic, now."

"They're on their way." Ryan starts, "Castle, how did you-"

Esposito grabs Ryan's vest and shoots him a look not to ask and kneels down next to Castle as the sirens start to wail in the distance.

* * *

Once at the hospital, vests off, Castle paces impatiently in the waiting area.

If it was any other situation, he probably wouldn't have taken action. But this wouldn't be the first time he's let this quasi-facade fall in the name of making sure she saw the next day. He's done it before. Hustling her at the shooting range out of a file he wanted, shooting that gun out of Dunn's hand, punching out Lockwood.

But this time, he might have let too much of that facade fall. He could tell that Esposito was holding his words back, and telling Ryan to do the same. What he feared most, he felt was about to unfold thanks to the necessity of his actions needing to be taken. But from what the doctor told him, Beckett should be fine. Nothing serious but a blow to the head. They don't think it's a concussion but they have to check to be sure. At the most, she'll have a splitting headache for a couple days.

Which will be great for her moods.

"Hey, Castle."

He closes his eyes and lets out a silent sigh of frustration, turning to Espo with a smirk. "The doctor's said she'll be fine. Just a bump on the head is all."

Espo nods and raises his brow, tapping him on the arm. "That's good." He says, nodding slowly. "That's real good bro."

Castle smiles and looks down to the floor. Something about Espo's eyes seem... too knowing.

"Hey, uh..." Esposito says, pushing his hands into his pockets and shifting his weight. "That was a hell of a shot you pulled off."

Castle shrugs his shoulders innocently and starts to pace away from him. "Just got lucky, I guess."

"So uh..." Esposito says, the sound of his voice telling him that he's starting to follow. "Where'd you train?"

Castle whips back around to look at him with a knot in his brow and his stomach. "W-what are you talking about?" He asks on a humorless chuckle.

"Come on, Castle." He replies with a smile. "I saw the way you moved out there. I know military training when I see it."

"I'm a _writer,_ Esposito." Castle tries to throw off.

But Espo doesn't seem to buy it. This is what he was afraid of. "Castle, there's only a handful of people that could have made that shot and they're all in the military. So, where'd you train?" Esposito says with an open, all too knowing smile.

"I... I wasn't in the military." He says with a tight jaw, pacing passed him.

"Castle, drop the act, will you?"

"It _wasn't..._ military!" Castle urges him, turning back to him with his hand out in front of him. Castle meets his eyes and feels his gut twist. "It was..." He closes his eyes and shakes his head. Maybe he can keep it between just them. "...Private security."

Esposito's brow lowers and his eyes harden as Castle paces passed him again, restless and unable to stand still. "You were a _turncoat?!"_

"Privately hired security liaison!" Castle spits, turning back to him with clenched teeth. Esposito's expression doesn't shift from anger as he waits for Castle to explain. Castle pushes out a breath through his nose and rolls his eyes. "I was a high school graduate with no real-world ambitions and no real family I would be leaving behind. Someone who had graduated a few years earlier offered me a job and the money was too good to pass up. It would be a few months of training and two years of service, then the contract would end and I could go home. So... that's what I did. Did my job and used the money to get In a Hail of Bullets published."

Esposito just stares him down with a furrow in his brow.

"It's ancient history that I've put behind me." He finishes and turns away from him.

"Well, does Beckett know?"

Castle looks over his shoulder to him, "Of _course,_ Beckett doesn't know. She'd be the last person I would tell this to."

"Castle, you have to tell her about this." Esposito says.

"That's not gonna happen, Espo." He says and paces away from him.

"Well, if you don't then I will."

Castle reacts quickly, grabbing Esposito by the collar and shoving him against the wall, hissing at him through clenched teeth. "If you utter one _word_ about this to Beckett, I'll do things to you they _didn't_ teach you in _boot camp!"_

After a tense second of Castle holding Esposito against the wall in a tight grasp, he lets him go and Esposito shakes him off.

"I did things I am _not_ proud of, Javi. And unlike you, I don't have the luxury of telling myself I was just doing my patriotic duty. And if anyone can understand why I put it behind me and how hard it was, it should be you." Espo looks away and seems to un-tense, seeming to understand where Castle is coming from. "Beckett can't know about this, okay?"

"Well, what about the report? Me and Ryan both saw you make that shot. She's gonna have questions, Castle."

Castle pushes out a hard breath and looks down the hall. "As far as the paperwork's concerned... you made that shot. Tell that to Ryan next time you see him, and..." Castle says, taking a step closer to him, "Javi, please... keep this between us."

Esposito fights off the deep crease in his brow but nods anyway. "Beckett will never know."


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Happy with the response I got from the first you guys keep it coming! Let me know what you think. I have the next chapter written, but giving it some time before I post it, just as I did with this chapter. Tough times ahead!_

* * *

With a tight throat, Castle turns the knob, opens the door and peeks his head inside. But the sight he sees sends a cold knife into his heart and a heavy drag of depressing hopelessness into his soul. It's easy to forget about when it's just them. But the real world has to shatter the fantasy he keeps building at some point.

Just another reminder that he's only part of her professional life and not her personal one, which she keeps as far apart as she can. It's times like now and sights like this that remind him that he's just the guy tagging along for the ride. It makes him think the dreams he has will only come to fruition when he's asleep. The tight squeeze that constricts his heart, almost making it painful to breathe right, the knot in his stomach and the sharp pain in his eyes as he sees it... just making the greatest victories seem like the most bitter of defeats.

Standing next to her, while she sits on one of the many examining tables that are lined up in the emergency room, is Josh, in a leather jacket and a tight-fitting polo shirt. Just another reminder that he's unable to compete in the hierarchy that is her personal life, that she will always see more in Josh than she does him, or never see him the same way as she does Josh. _He is a doctor, for god's sake. He does actually help people._

Castle sheepishly steps inside and looks down to the floor, not wanting to intrude but also not wanting to know what it feels like to watch them together. But his heart shudders when he hears the unmistakable sound of her giggle hit his ears. Yet another reminder that she's not only with someone else but happy. Which at the end of the day, he has to heartbreakingly accept.

There was a time just a few months ago when that was up for debate in his mind. But ever since Josh canceled his trip to come back to her, they've seemed to hit it off. And lately, it's almost been too much for him to bear. And right now, one part of his brain is urging him to yield to his fate and slink out of the room while he has the chance while another part is telling him to rudely interrupt just so Josh will go away.

Castle just takes a deep breath that does nothing but makes him nauseous and looks up, taking a few steps forward.

When Josh's eyes look up and find Castle standing there, Josh's smile fades quickly. "So, just keep off your feet for a few days and you should be fine, okay?" He says with a hand on her back.

Kate smiles and pulls on her jacket. "Thanks." She says and tugs her hair out from under her collar. Josh leans down and presses his lips to her head, and she watches briefly as Castle, who was looking at her with a soft smirk, now quickly turns away as if he'll turn to stone at the sight of Josh's intimacy. She shakes away the thought as Castle paces away from them with his hands tucked casually into his pockets. "So, see you tonight?" She asks nervously.

Josh starts away from her and toward the door, his shoulders falling as he turns back to her. "Ah... I have a meeting with someone from the charity. I can't make it tonight. Tomorrow?"

She smiles despite herself and nods her head. "I'm on call all week, so as long as a body doesn't drop, that should work."

Josh smiles, crosses his fingers, and moves out the door, leaving her and Castle mostly alone save for a few nurses filling out paper work. Castle is almost on the other side of the room, fiddling with medical instruments that he shouldn't be, as he always is when things like that are lying about. She stands up off the table, her head aching and her body feeling lazy and tired.

"Hey." She calls over to him as she straightens her jacket.

He turns to her with a smile and starts to meander his way over to her. "So, they give you the all clear?"

"Oh," She waves her hand, "I'll be fine."

Castle's brow creases and he takes another step forward, pulling his hand out and holding up three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

She deadpans but grins despite herself. "Three."

His lips purse as he looks down to his fingers with a lowered brow. "Wow, they hit you harder than I thought. I was only holding up one."

She shakes her head, breathing out a small laugh, "So, what happened? No one seems to know anything."

Castle steps up to her with his hands still buried in his pockets, nervous about what she knows and what she saw, if anything. "Uh... what do you remember?" He asks with a shrug.

She shakes her head, feeling it swim as it aches painfully. "Nothing, I had just taken a statement from the building owner when I hear some tires squeal behind me and the next thing I know, I feel someone hit me over the head."

Castle nods then looks down to the floor. Well, he can explain as best he can and in a way that will match the paperwork Esposito will file. "Well, Wilson's two cohorts were coming to pick him up so they could make for the border when we made the arrest. I guess their plan changed when they saw you and remembered you questioning them yesterday. If I had to guess their motives, they probably thought they could... make a bargain, you for Wilson."

Beckett nods slowly, not wanting to move her head too much. "How'd you stop them?"

Castle's blood freezes in his veins. "W-what uh... what do you mean?" He asks nervously.

"Well, I'm here and Wilson's friends are both dead. They don't seem like the type to just whack me over the head then give up."

"Oh, uh..." He says and breathes a chuckle with a relieved smile. "Esposito decided to show off that Special Forces training of his. Made a shot that could make Annie Oakley flinch. Once they were both dead, we ran over and called you an ambulance."

Beckett smiles, "Well, just one more thing he can brag about, I guess."

"You know, while we're here, we could ask about having his ego reduced." Castle cracks with his thumb pointed over his shoulder.

"Oh, really? Maybe we could get a twofer and get yours done too."

"I asked them about it already. They said it would break their Hippocratic oath to desecrate something so beautiful... err... something." He fires back.

She feels herself purse her lips, fighting off a smile as she rolls her eyes, shaking her head. "Well," She sighs, "my plans fell through for the night. You wanna..." She shrugs, "grab a bite?"

And in any other time, in any other circumstance, if the last two or three minutes didn't happen, he would jump at the chance as eagerly as he does every other chance he has with her. Spending time with her outside of her profession under the thin veil of either talking about case details or just having nothing better to do seems a rare commodity and one that he usually covets like a precious treasure. But today, he's feeling too introspective and heartbroken to let that veil fool him again, to settle yet again for just being used as a cheap, hand-me-down replacement for something she can't have and would much rather have instead of him.

He just shoots her a heavy smile, "Actually, I uh... I have some writing I've neglected that's been demanding my attention for a while. Might need to stay in tonight to get it out of the way."

Feeling let down again, even more so now that she will have to ease her headache on her own, she nods. "Okay." She says in a tight, high-pitched voice. She can't help but feel disappointment snake its way into her system. She has a headache and grabbing a quick, casual dinner with him seems like it would get rid of it. Or at the very least distract her from everything else. She had planned on spending the night in with Josh, but ever since they decided to give their relationship a real shot, the nights they aren't on call with their jobs, their jobs are all they seem to talk about.

Which, most of the time, is exactly what she wants to forget about.

A meal at Remy's with Castle would, at the very least, distract her from her headache and her responsibilities.

Castle sends her another quick smile and shifts his feet, a bit of an awkward silence befalling them. "So, tomorrow?" She asks him, sounding a bit too hopeful for her own ears.

He breathes out a sigh, trying to get himself to let go of his hopelessness and self-pity and just accept things as they are now. He's still her partner and, if anything, she does want him in some part of her life.

Even if it is the part of her life that doesn't keep him around.

He smiles again and nods his head, "Tomorrow."

* * *

He didn't really lie to her. He does have writing that he needed to catch up on. Gina's been bugging him for another chapter for a few days, even though it's not due till the end of the week... and it's only Wednesday.

But he just lets out a sigh, ending on a groan as he turns himself in his office chair with a small glass of whiskey hanging limply from his hand. His laptop is open on his desk, the screen about half full of words. He just can't seem to motivate himself tonight. He knows why but is hoping that the alcohol will help burn away the hurt.

When he writes, he has to hear her voice in his head when he writes Nikki's dialogue, has to see her movements when he writes her actions. His mind has to be flooded with images and sounds of her when he writes for Nikki Heat and tonight, it's sending a deep, cold weight of hopelessness into his system. He just can't get that picture out of his mind. Her sitting on that table after he just saved her life again and walking into the room, seeing her with Josh.

It was one thing when Josh was away saving the world and she was here in New York. Then, he could at least pretend that Josh didn't exist and he had a chance to finally prove to her that he was good enough. When Josh was gone, the angry disappointment she would have at his absence would be a way of telling him that she wasn't happy with Josh, which gave him hope that it would soon be over and maybe... if the stars align, she'd maybe give him a chance for once.

But now that Josh is back in town, seemingly for good, she seems happy with him. And at the end of the day, he has to accept that. As heartbreaking as it is, he has to. If Josh truly makes her happy, no matter what he likes to dream of seeing in between the lines or how he chooses to explain it away, he has to accept that and let her be happy.

He's getting lost again. Lost in wallowing in his own self-pity and pessimism. And the whiskey isn't helping. Weirdly enough, it feels better to just wallow for once, not let himself drift off into fantasy. Because the fantasy always ends eventually and he's left having to come crashing back down to Earth... like he always does. Every...single... time.

But at least this self-loathing depression is distracting him from that part of him being out there to a select few. He's put that part of his life and those scarred memories behind him a long time ago. He's swallowed that hurt and moved passed it, accepted that time in his life as a part he can't change and has done his best to rectify himself and make sure he doesn't either get consumed by what he did or so hell-bent on changing it that he ends up right back where he started.

Back down a path he was never meant to tread in the first place.

He draws in a long, deep breath and lifts his glass to his lips, throwing the whiskey down his throat bitterly. "Richard?" His mother calls from the entrance to his office.

He looks over and spins himself around in his chair. "Yes, Mother?" He asks, a little too lethargically.

"I heard there was a shootout today in the park. Are you okay?" She asks, sounding worried as she comes around to sit in a chair facing his desk.

"I'm fine, Mother. Why?"

"Well," She starts with a shrug, "you usually only sit in the dark with a glass of scotch in your hand when something is bothering you."

"I've been in shootouts with Beckett before, Mother. I'm fine."

"Ugh," She groans and lifts a hand to stop him, "Richard, the less I know, trust me, the better. I can only hope that Beckett does her best to keep you out of trouble as best she can."

"Mother, I can handle myself just fine. I don't follow Beckett around because she's my babysitter. I follow her around because she's my partner." _But I still just follow her around,_ he thinks bitterly to himself as he spins around and flings his chair over to the wall and grabs the decanter off the table, filling his glass with a quick splash of alcohol.

"Well, _something_ must be bothering you. This is only a ritual I have to observe when something is upsetting you."

"It's nothing I want to talk about if that's what you're asking." He deflects and tosses the scotch down his throat, quickly filling his glass back up.

"What? Was Beckett hurt or something?" She prods.

As the burn of the scotch tears his verbal filter asunder, he lets it slip. "Yes, and I had to watch that Mr. Universe of a boyfriend of her's take care of her at the hospital."

"Well, is she alright?"

"Just a bump on the head and I thought _I_ was the one you were worried about here."

"You _are,_ Richard, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to ask about Beckett, does it?"

"Beckett is still Beckett, Mother." He says as if it's an insult, with a sneer and a shake of his head. "She's just going to have a headache for a couple days, which will be just _great_ for her moods." He says and looks down at his glass, starting to speak under his breath, "She doesn't want me there half the time as it is already."

"Okay, Richard. We both know that that was the alcohol talking and that you didn't really mean that." She says and stands up, tugging the glass out of his hand. "Despite what your Devil's advocate is telling you, Beckett adores you and does, as a matter of fact, enjoy having you around, granted, more than she'll probably allow herself to admit." His mother says and moves toward the table, setting the glass down a good distance away from him. "I've seen her with you enough times to know that she does enjoy your company and would be distraught if you were to leave."

"Hate to burst your bubble, Mother, but you're not exactly an impartial observer." He says as she starts out of his office.

"And you aren't exactly sober right now so who's judgment are you going to trust more?" She says, turning in the doorway.

He just shakes his imbalanced head and wheels himself back in front of his laptop, tossing himself forward to continue writing. As he looks at the screen, rereading the dialogue he's had written in his head for some time, he can hear her voice, can see her lips move as she says the words he has written. It usually makes it that much easier, makes the words effortlessly float onto the page.

But tonight, his heart is just sending a painful longing into those words and those visions.

He sighs and slams his laptop shut, giving up on writing for the night.


	3. Chapter 3

"Wait, so..." Ryan says and crosses his arms tightly across his chest, leaning against Esposito's desk, "you're saying Castle was a _mercenary?"_

Esposito swivels himself in his chair with a small scowl. "That's what he told me."

"Man..." Ryan exhales and leans back. "You think you know a guy." Esposito just sneers again, shaking his head to himself. "Why, you military guys have a problem with private contractors or something?"

"I took an oath, Ryan." Esposito says and looks up at him. "I swore to serve my country and defend my brothers on the line with me. But these guys?" Esposito says and leans forward with a clenched jaw. Esposito sighs and leans on his elbows. "When I was stationed in Afghanistan, I was at a FOB one day, waiting for the next mission to roll out. Middle of the day, the Secretary of Defense lands on the runway in a chopper. He steps off and he's surrounded by Black Water troops. Private guards getting paid five times what we were. These guys do it for the money. They have no honor or sense of loyalty." He says and tosses his hand out, throwing himself back in his chair.

"Come on, you're really gonna hold all that against Castle? We've known the guy for years. He's not like that."

Espo shakes his head, in a conflict with himself. "I just have a real problem with hired guns pretending they stand for anything. I'm not saying Castle's that kind of guy, but... the fact that he wants to hide all this from Beckett makes me think twice."

"Well, didn't he tell you it was something he wasn't proud of? I mean... it's not like you've told _Lanie_ everything you've done in the Service, right?"

"That's why I'm keeping my mouth shut." He answers with a raised brow. "Some of the guys I served with walked away with scars they couldn't handle. And if Castle's telling the truth and he has moved on from it, that's something that not a lot of people can do."

"So..." Ryan starts again, his worry starting to prickle his nerves at the thought of prying into this, "he didn't tell you exactly what it is he did? What group was he with?"

"I don't know, and... with everything Castle's done for Beckett... if he wants this to stay a secret, I think we owe it to him to keep it that way."

Ryan nods, "You think so?"

"At least until he's ready to tell Beckett."

Ryan looks up and sees the elevator doors open, seeing Castle arrive for the morning, holding two cups of coffee in his hands as always. "Speaking of which." He says and nods up to him as he strides into the bullpen. "Hey, Castle," Ryan says.

Castle looks around, seeing her desk empty, but her things set down. She's here, just not _here_ here. "Hey, guys." He says casually and motions towards Beckett's desk. "Where's Beckett?"

Esposito looks up at Castle with a blank expression. "She's down in the range."

Castle nods, seeing Esposito is still holding his long forgotten past against him. He's well aware of the reputation that line of work has amongst proud, patriotic soldiers like him, which is just one of the many reasons he wanted to stay just a writer to them. Castle gives them a tucked smile with pursed lips and turns around back toward the elevator.

"You gonna show her how it's done, soldier?"

As Castle rounds the corner to head back to the elevator, he sends Espo a glare, seeing him still stare him down while Ryan looks at him with a quirked brow, seeming indifferent about his partner's behavior. Back on the elevator, Castle grits his teeth and shakes his head. "I never should have taken that shot." He mutters to himself.

If he keeps acting like this, it's only a matter of time before Beckett notices and starts asking questions. And when that happens, he's either going to have to start deflecting which with make her question if he's really who she thought he was. Or she will pull it out of him and he will tell her everything, which will yield the same result. The scales are tipped against his favor enough as it is with her, he doesn't need that much weight being put on the other end.

After another minute, he steps into the range, seeing her in the center booth, the loud pop of gun shots ringing out in his ears. And the sight of her sends that same feeling into his system that it does every morning; intense butterflies in his stomach, a woosh of air stolen from his lungs, and a sudden paralyzing weakness in his limbs. She's wearing that same tight blue turtle neck she wore that day of that bomb scare when he had to walk away to the sight of her in arms that weren't his.

He quickly shakes his head, trying to physically shake away his thoughts and quietly starts toward her as she finishes off her magazine. Once he's a just a foot behind her and she's releasing her magazine from her Glock, he moves the coffee cup into her field of view. Once she sees it, she jumps, " _God!"_

She shouts as her back hits against the wall of the shooting booth, her hand against her chest as she breathes hard. "Sorry." He says in a small voice.

"Ugh..." She groans and pushes off the wall, standing back up straight. "Castle... could you not sneak up on me like that?" She says in a frustrated voice and a knot in her brow, pulling her headphones off, taking her coffee.

"What are you doing down here anyway?" He asks, not taking her mood too personally.

She sighs and puts her Glock down on the table with a haphazard clatter. "Oh, the precinct wants me to requalify because of what happened yesterday. I thought I'd..." she says, tossing her hand forward annoyingly, "get some practice before I have to take the test this morning."

As he looks down the lane, he sees that she's all over the place. "Well." He says, stepping forward and leaning against the wall. "You'd pass if you're going to be chasing after the broad sides of _barns_ for the rest of your police life."

"Yeah, I don't know what I'm doing wrong." She says with her eyes down on her coffee cup. Her head is splitting, her requalification is in two hours and at this rate, she's not going to walk away happy with her results. She sighs and shakes her aching head, lifting her cup to her lips and takes the first sip. Once the hot liquid hits her tongue, her brow creases. "Mmm... there's something different in here, what is it?"

"Oh, it's just something to help you with your head ache, that's all." He says, his brow cocked as he looks down the lane at her target.

"You're _drugging_ me?"

His eyes roll, "It's just colloidal silver, Beckett. It's all natural. I give it to Alexis all the time. Your headache will be gone in about twenty minutes, trust me."

Feeling a slight twinge of guilt that she let the axe buried in her skull get to her, she fights a smile and takes another long swig of her coffee and sets it down on the table as she picks up another magazine and slips her headphones back on. After a few more rounds sent down the lane, she's still all over the place... and she's getting frustrated with herself. She groans and leans against the table.

And seeing her like this; frustrated, tired, and cranky, he caves. "Mind if I try something?"

She lifts her hand, shaking her head. "No, Castle, I need to focus on this, okay?" She says and lifts her gun again, sending a few more rounds down range, still not hitting anywhere near center-mass. She clenches her teeth and sighs, slipping her headphones off and setting her Glock down on the table. "Alright, go for it."

He lets out a small breath and pushes off the wall, setting his cup down next to hers and picking up her Glock, releasing the magazine and racking the slide back, taking the round out of the chamber. "You left eye or right eye dominant?"

But watching as he takes the rounds out of her gun, completely counterintuitive to what she needs to be doing, she uncrosses her arms. "Left. What the hell are you doing, Castle?"

"Left eye dominant but you're right handed?" He asks with his brow pushed together. "That's weird."

"Castle." She says again, just as he's handing her the gun, void of a magazine or any bullets. She looks over at him with a deadpan stare, but he just raises a challenging brow. She lets out a sigh and grabs onto her Glock with both hands. He then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of change, moving the coins about with his pinky before grabbing a dime and slipping the rest of the change back into his pocket.

He pushes the gun back up so she's aiming it down range and holds it steady with one hand, carefully placing the dime on the front sight with the other. His hands let her go and she holds it as steady as she can. "Now pull the trigger."

She pushes out a breath and pulls the trigger, but the dime falls off and drops to the table.

"You're pulling off to the right, reacting to the shot before it happens." He says, too knowingly and confidently as he picks the dime back up and grabs her hands, racking the slide back for her and readjusting her so she's holding it back up range and places the dime back on the front sight. She tenses her muscles and focuses, pulling the trigger as smoothly as she can.

And when the dime shakes but doesn't fall, she lets out a laugh of relief and feels herself smile.

"See?"

She nods her head as she picks the dime up herself and places it back on top of her front sight. "So..." She starts, pulling the trigger again, still relieved that the dime stays in place, "how many times do I have to do this?"

Castle shrugs his shoulders and tucks his hands back into his pockets. "Say... ten times in a row?"

* * *

It's around noon by the time he's on his phone, sitting in his usual chair next to Beckett's empty desk, mapping out a dialogue he has in his head before he loses it. Esposito and Ryan are both at their desks filling out paperwork, both picking out of containers for lunch. Esposito seems to have let his past go for now. At the very least, he understands him wanting to put it behind him and has kept his promise not to let Beckett in on it.

And for that, he can be honestly grateful for, no matter Esposito's personal opinions on things, of which he's no doubt shared with Ryan.

After a few more silent minutes, looking over his notes on his phone, he sees her stride back into the bullpen, a soft smile playing across her lips. He looks up at her and leans back in his chair. "So?"

"I passed." She says and sits down next to him, pulling herself up to her desk and looking over to him with a softness in her eyes. "Thanks."

His brow quirks, not hearing that very often. "For?"

"That thing with the dime, it... it really helped."

He can hear Esposito's squeaky chair move behind him. "Uh..." He says, slightly nervous. "Don't mention it." He says with a smile.

She flips open her folder and grabs her pen. "And for the coffee also. My head ache is almost gone." She says, waving her hand in front of her head. Castle just smiles in a silent 'you're welcome' and bounces his leg up and down in a nervous twitch. "Where'd you learn that, anyway?" She asks off handedly.

"Hmm?" He hums, feigning not paying attention. "Oh, I uh... saw it in a movie once."

He can hear Esposito's chair squeak again behind him, but doesn't give it notice. "Well, it really helped. I don't think I would have passed without it." She says just as her phone is ringing. "Beckett." She answers.

He pushes out a hard, nervous breath and looks away, feeling Espo's eyes bore into him. He's going to say something, he can feel it.

Beckett hangs up her phone and looks up to Ryan and Esposito. "Hey guys, we got a body."

They all stand and start for the elevator, with Beckett moving ahead of them as Espo falls into step with Castle. "So you had her do dime drills, huh?"

"I was just trying to help her out, Esposito."

"That something they teach you as a merc?" He asks snidely.

Castle shoots him a glare as they near Beckett, who's standing in front of the elevator, waiting for it to arrive. "Keep talking and I'll show you what else they taught me."

* * *

 _A/N: The story in the beginning about the Sec. of Defense is a true story I heard from a family member stationed in Afghanistan. So no, I'm not pulling these things out of nowhere._


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: All I can say is try not to jump to conclusions with this chapter. I have it all mapped out. No worries. Thanks always for all the ups and support in my writing. :)_

* * *

As they step out of her car and start heading toward the alley way where the body is, Beckett is looking down at her phone with a knitted brow. Castle notices and lets himself fall into step with her. "Something wrong?"

Beckett looks up at him with a raised brow, smiling sheepishly as she pushes her phone back into her coat pocket. "No, it's nothing." She says with a smile and goes into the alleyway.

Something stopped her from just telling him that it was Josh who was on the other end of that text message, and she replied with having to say she might not make it tonight because of a body dropping so late in the day. Chances are, they won't get out until pretty late tonight thanks to this. But she should be allowed a few nights considering he canceled on her for... months at a time thanks to his job. But maybe she can make the most of it. Hopefully, this case will be a weird one and she can get lost in trying to keep Castle's mind on the tracks.

"So, Lanie, what've we got?" Beckett asks as she steps up to the body lying in the middle of the alley, a large gash in her left side. The first thing that catches Beckett's eye is her clothes. She looks like an average college student. Not some high-class hooker or junkie, but just an average college student in a pair of blue jeans, running shoes, and a hoodie that's rolled up her stomach.

"No ID, but I'd put her age at maybe late teens, early twenties. Time of death was some time last night around nine or ten o'clock based on lividity."

"I take it that the cause of death is that rather large hole in her side, then?" Castle asks next to Beckett.

"Probably, but I wouldn't bet the house on it." Lanie says with a shrug.

"What do you mean?" Beckett asks.

"Well, at first glance, the cut looks surgical."

"Surgical?" Castle asks, "So we have a modern-day Dr. Frankenstien on the loose then?"

"He only stole from the dead, Castle." Beckett says off-handedly as she looks over the body.

"Well, _she's_ dead, isn't she?" He shrugs, making Beckett fend off a smile.

" _And_ nothing is missing." Lanie follows up with a pointed finger.

"Missing? What do you mean 'missing'?" Castle asks, seeming hesitant to find out.

"Well..." Lanie says, her tone shifting into fearful, "she would be around the right age and she looks relatively healthy... with a cut like that and a place like this... I thought it might have been organ theft."

"Organ theft?!" Beckett asks. Lanie nods sadly and Beckett shoots a look over to Castle, in a small hope that he can explain it away with a crazy theory. But he's looking at her with a twinge in his brow. "Great, that means I'm gonna have to call the feds."

"Well, I'm not sure." Lanie continues. "Like I said, none of her vital organs are missing. So, I'm probably wrong."

"But organ theft? Really?"

"It's a real thing." Castle says next to her, eyes woefully down to the body. She looks over and sees his eyes having a far away haziness to them. "There are these villages in," Castle catches his words before they leap off his tongue, "places like Central America that are targeted by groups of kidnappers who take people right around her age for anything from prostitution to slavery. But some times, it would be an offer of money to come to the States to sell a kidney for a few thousand then go home. Which... down there would be like winning the lottery."

"Only one problem, Castle." Beckett says and crosses her arms. "We don't have some girl from Central America dressed in rags on our hands. We have what looks like a college kid from a normal, middle-class family on our hands." It's a good story and she has no doubt that it's a real thing, what he's talking about. But right now, it's too out of left field.

"Then how do _you_ explain the gash in her side?" Castle asks, shooting her a challenging grin.

"Well..." She starts, looking down at the body, then shooting Lanie a hopeful look. "Lanie?"

"That's _your_ job." Lanie points her pen at those two.

Beckett sighs and presses her palm into her forehead, the lingerings her headache starting to come back. "Alright..." She groans. At least this case is a weird one that will keep her mind occupied. "Lanie, get us a face so we can run it through missing persons and I'll have Ryan and Espo canvass the area."

Beckett starts out of the alley with Castle in close tow. "You sure everything's okay?" Castle asks, being honestly concerned. And trying to keep her from asking about his theory.

She looks over to him with a thankful smile, "No, it's..." She sighs, not wanting to unload her personal problems on Castle. She doesn't want to have to deal with him making fun of Josh like he always does. But he sounds honestly concerned and really... she could use some lighthearted humor at Josh's expense from him right now. "Josh and I had plans to have dinner together and we keep having to cancel on each other."

There's a strong tug in Castle's heart at her words. The angel and devil are having a drunken brawl on his shoulder over this. On one hand, he should be happy that her job is preventing her from spending time with Josh and is forcing her to spend time with him instead. But on the other, he doesn't want to be with her if she's being forced. If she truly wants to be with Josh then she should be allowed to make that decision... even if he is standing right here as she does.

Castle just pushes a very heavy smile and looks over at her, "Well, maybe my brilliance will get you out of here on time."

She gives him a fighting smile and eye roll as she falls into the driver seat of her car.

* * *

It's running late into the afternoon by the time they get an ID on their victim.

Vanessa Lewis, whose mother is sitting in the conference room waiting for Castle and Beckett to talk to her about her daughter, seemed like an average college student who wanted to take the world by storm. She was very active in student groups, had a good attendance record with a solid grade point average. Nothing out of the ordinary stood out about her. And even as she walks out of Montgomery's office so he can get in contact with the FBI's field office and finds Castle waiting by the murder board, she casts another glance in the mother's direction and lets her grief and sadness will her to find Vanessa's killer.

It's a ritual she performs with every murder. Looking at the victim's photo, putting herself in the victim's life, looking at the victim's family and friends and their grief, feeling their loss, investing in the victim, making it all will her to pursue justice for them. She takes another step toward Castle and picks up her binder off her desk. "You ready?" She asks him, motioning toward the conference room.

He looks over to her with a smile. "Yeah."

They quickly move into the conference room, where the victim's mother is in silent tears, crumpling up a tissue in her hands. "Ms. Lewis?" Beckett starts and extends a hand.

The mother looks over with red eyes and tear tracks flowing down her face. "Yes?"

"I'm Detective Beckett and this is my partner, Richard Castle."

Mrs. Lewis looks up to Castle as he paces behind the chair Beckett just took in front of her. "Like... the writer?"

With the case of this young girl pulling the mood down, his ego isn't letting him brag about being recognized. So, he just looks over at her with a soft smile. "Yeah, that's me."

The mother smiles sadly and looks down at the tissue in her hands briefly before looking back up at him. "Vanessa loved your books."

He feels a strange sense of strength and humbleness fill him at that. He sees Beckett look over her shoulder to him with a small smile and life of her brow before turning back to the mother. "I assure you, Ms. Lewis, we are doing everything we can to find out who killed your daughter."

The mother nods and dabs the tissue in her hands under her nose as Castle starts to slowly meander passed her, pacing around the room with his hands in his pockets. "I-I still can't believe she's dead. Vanessa was all I had."

Beckett opens her binder and clicks her pen open. "What about her father? Is he in the picture?"

"No, he uh... he left when she was just a little girl." She looks passed the mother to see Castle lower his head, his jaw tense and brow furrowing.

"Uh..." She says, getting back on track. "Can you think of anyone Vanessa might have had a problem with? Did she talk to you about anyone she might have had a fight with at school maybe?"

"No, everybody loved Vanessa." She says with a shake of her head as Castle paces his way passed her again.

But he stops when he looks down into the mother's open purse, seeing a familiar looking handheld device. And getting an idea, he asks before Beckett moves to go ahead without him. "Are you diabetic?"

The mother looks up with her brow knitted together in curiosity at Castle's sudden question. "Yeah, type one. I've had it since I was eighteen. Why?"

Castle looks up to Beckett with one side of his brow raised, a soft smirk playing at the edges of his lips as she sends him a curious but knowing look. "Ms. Lewis, is it possible that Vanessa was developing it?"

The mother looks down at the floor, shaking her head. "Vanessa has always been pretty health conscious since she knew the risks but... my doctor said that it was always possible. What... what does this have to do with Vanessa's death?"

* * *

Castle and Beckett move out of the conference room, showing the mother out with assurances that her killer will be caught. Beckett can't help but notice Castle's lowered brow and inwardly angry expression, seeming frustrated. "Hey." She says as she goes up to the murder board and uncaps a pen. Castle looks up to her, "Something got to you in there. What was it?"

"Oh, it's..." He shakes his head, waving his hand and pushes it back into his pocket. "I just have a real problem with men who abandon their children like that." He says, giving into her asking, wanting to keep it buried.

And as Beckett writes down the word ' _diabetes'_ with a question mark below the picture of the victim, she watches as Castle sinks into thought. The first thing that always makes her see that other side of him is the way he is with Alexis. Despite the act, he's a great father who loves his daughter more than anything. He may be a bit clueless as she comes of age on how to handle her teenage years, but he's still a very devoted and loving father to Alexis. So it's understandable that he would have a soft spot for children being abandon by their father's.

Him being a father is usually the quickest thing that makes him drop the act and makes him show her who he really is underneath all that badly timed humor, sarcasm, and ego.

And then there's his own childhood. She's always wondered if he poured himself into raising Alexis to make up for what his own father didn't do. It's something they've never talked about. Among many things they've never talked about. She knits her brow and continues to write notes down onto the murder board as she thinks, acutely aware of her partner standing next to her. Everything between them is either a forbidden topic or on a list of things they've mutually and silently agreed to pretend doesn't exist.

Only they do.

And they're things she won't allow herself to think about... too often. She never bothers to analyze things... or maybe just doesn't have the heart.

But she can't think of it right now. She has a young girl who's life was just robbed from her and a killer she needs to catch.

And luckily, Esposito just returned from running down the victim's last known whereabouts. "So, the last time her roommate saw her was two days ago when she left suddenly in the middle of the day. She said that Vanessa had a paper that was due and was pretty focused on that until recently when she started to seem distracted. But we found directions to a free clinic in the city on a piece of paper in the trash."

"So, she went to see a doctor before she died?" Castle asks.

"What about a boyfriend? Was she seeing anyone?" Beckett asks as she caps her pen.

"Not that I could find but we still have Tori digging through her social media."

Beckett nods and crosses her arms. "Alright, well, we have Lanie running blood work now and having the contents of her laptop searched for anything that might have gotten her killed. If Lanie is right and this is about organ theft, she must have been targeted by someone."

Castle steps up next to her, "And if it was organ theft, her having early on set diabetes like her mother would explain why none of her kidneys were missing."

"Which would also explain her sudden shift in behavior." Beckett finishes next to him as she goes to answer her phone ringing on her desk. "Beckett."

" _Hey, it's Lanie."_

"Hey, Lanie. What've you got?" Beckett asks with her binder open as she sits down.

" _Well, I found an odd combination of drugs in her system. I've seen it before but I can't quite place it yet. I'm sending up the tox screen now."_

"Okay. Hey, the mother had type one diabetes. She said she developed it around eighteen. Did you find anything in Vanessa's system that could've indicated if she was developing the same thing?"

" _Well, her blood-sugar was a bit low. But nothing that indicated early on set diabetes."_

"Alright." She groans into the receiver and pushes a hand through her hair. "Thanks, Lanie." She says and hangs up the phone. She leans down on her hand as Castle sits down in his chair next to her desk. "Lanie says that there was nothing in Vanessa's system that indicated that she was developing diabetes."

Castle nods, "Well, she does still have a family history. Maybe they thought she was clean but then got worried about her organs failing in the future. Would make for a bad Yelp review, after all." He half-heartedly jokes.

"It's possible." She says and pushes her face into her hands. She's tired. It's another case where there are too many missing pieces to even see where this is headed.

"Uh..." Ryan says, leaning out of the tech room. "Javi, Castle?" He asks, but them and Beckett all look up. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" He asks, way too casually.

Beckett's brow lowers as she watches Castle and Espo stand up. She's the lead detective. If he found something on the case, she needs to know about it. As Castle and Esposito both move toward the tech room, with Castle sending her a worried look before going through the door, she waits until she sees them talking, deciding to catch them in the act.

And as Castle moves in behind Esposito, he sees Ryan looking up at the screen. "So, we found a set of prints on the victim's sleeve. And on a hunch, I ran it against local hospital staff."

"And what you get?" Castle asks.

Ryan takes a look around before turning on the screen, showing the image that sends a knot into everyone's throat. "No way." Esposito says and shakes his head, waving his head.

"I ran it twice, Javi." Ryan defends himself in a hushed voice.

"But... it could be a false positive, Ryan. It happens." He says, a nauseous knot in his gut at this. Ryan just looks at him with a nervous brow.

"It was a full hand-print, Castle... and it belongs Dr. Josh Davidson."

* * *

 _A/N: I was always disappointed that Castle's background as a writer fell to the wayside after the first season, then was only brought back in season 8 as a means to make fun of him. If any of you have read my work before, I try to make it a part of the story. I mean... he's a best selling novelist. The only time the writers ever seemed to bring it up is for Castle's money and not his skill as a writer. But I guess that's why we're here. :)_


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: I can already tell you that most of you are going to come away from this chapter absolutely hating Beckett. I can just hear the screeching of anon trolls filling my guest reviews now. But, you need not worry! Your review will get approved. So keep them coming. :)_

* * *

"That can't be right."

Beckett's voice sends a shift into the air and they all quickly turn towards the door with wide eyes, seeing her standing in the doorway with a straight brow and a scowl. "Beckett," Castle says.

"I-I ran it twice, Beckett," Ryan says nervously, making her eyes look over at him angrily. "It's Josh's prints."

"Well, there's a different explanation!" She says in a raised voice, stepping into the room.

"Beckett." Castle tries in a soft voice, taking a step forward with his hands out in front of him.

"No, Castle, there's another explanation to this!" She says, turning her scowl toward him, more forcefully than she did Ryan.

It's then that Esposito decides to jump in. "Well, you know him better than any of us." Something about that sends a knife to jab into Castle's stomach. "What's your explanation?"

"I don't know!" She shouts with a frustrated shrug of her shoulders. "He's a doctor, maybe she was a patient of his."

"Except..." Ryan starts, making everybody go silent, clicking on the screen again, "I looked at the hospital's records... and Vanessa's name doesn't appear anywhere on Josh's list of patients."

"Well, there's _got_ to be another explanation to his prints being on our victim, Ryan!"

"Beckett," Castle starts, taking another step toward her and not backing down when she meets him with anger, her hands planted on her waist, "are you sure Josh couldn't have anything to do with this?"

Her response is as instant and as angry as he expected. "What the _hell_ is that supposed to mean? He's my _boyfriend,_ Castle! And besides, he has an alibi for the time of death."

But when Ryan looks over to her with his mouth hanging open, looking between her and Castle, he's hesitant to speak. "And... what is that?"

"He had a meeting with Doctors Without Borders last night." She says, waving her hand in the air.

The fact that she's defending him without question isn't going over Castle's head. And it's sending an odd sense of nausea and heartbreak into his chest. "Well, that's..." Ryan starts again, moving around the table and picking up a sheet of paper, "not... exactly what he told the hospital."

"What the hell do you mean, Ryan?" She asks, rolling her eyes frustratingly as she shifts her weight.

"When I tried to see if Vanessa was a patient of Josh's, I called the hospital for his records for the past week. And uh..." He says, sounding nervous and scared as he hands a sheet of paper to Castle, "he told the hospital he was having dinner with you last."

Castle takes the paper from Ryan and only has it in his hands for a second before it's being yanked out of his hands by her. They all watch silently as she reads over the log with a creased brow. After a few tense, silent moments, she waves it in the air. "This says he asked for the night off at the beginning of his shift in the morning. The meeting could have come up at the last minute. Did you call the charity yet, Ryan, or were you going to interrogate my boyfriend without telling me?" She asks, whipping the paper back toward the paper.

The air catches it as he glides haphazardly onto the floor. "Beckett, I _tried_ to avoid all this without getting you involved. But as of now, the prints place Josh with the victim and he doesn't have an alibi for last night." Ryan defends himself in a soft voice.

"You _don't_ know him, Ryan! He didn't do this!"

"Beckett, what's the harm in the checking?" Castle asks, his voice small and hesitant. A part of him is trying to unclench all this because she's defending someone she cares about so vehemently, but everything else is tightening at the fact that it's Josh. And in the back of his mind, he can't help but wonder if she'd put up the same kind of fight on his behalf.

" _What's_ the harm? Castle, I can tell you right now that he didn't do this."

"Beckett, as much as you don't like hearing it, the evidence points to Josh." Castle says, finally finding his voice as his shoulders tense, pointing at the picture of Josh still on the screen.

"You don't _have_ any evidence, Castle! There are a number of ways that Josh's prints could have gotten on the victim and none of them point to him being a murderer."

"Beckett, Lanie said that the cut made on the victim was surgical and Josh has a medical background." Off to their side, Esposito takes a step back toward Ryan as they both watch Castle and Beckett start to fight. Esposito silently taps Ryan on the arm, silently motioning them out of the room.

"There are hundreds of people in Manhattan that have a medical background, Castle." She says loudly, the veins in her neck popping out in anger.

"And Josh is the only one whose prints are on the victim right now."

"I _already_ told you, there's another explanation for that!" She says back as the door closes behind them.

"Well then, I'd love to hear it, Beckett." He says snidely, narrowing his eyes and nodding his head.

"What the _hell_ is that supposed to mean, Castle?!" She says, waving her arms in the air off to her sides.

"Beckett, you are _constantly_ telling me not to get lost in the weeds and to follow the evidence. And right now, Josh's prints are on the victim and he doesn't have an alibi. If it was _anybody_ else, their picture would already be up on that board as the prime suspect."

"The difference is he's my _boyfriend,_ Castle! He didn't do this."

"You know, that's something else coming from you." He says, crossing his arms.

"What are you saying, Rick?"

"I said the _exact_ same thing about Damian Westlake, about how I knew him and that he wasn't a killer, and you told me to go home because I was too close to the investigation." He says, starting to lean forward, deciding for once not to back down.

"This is _completely_ different, Castle! Damian Westlake actually turned out to be a killer and Josh has never been a suspect in a murder investigation before, Westlake was."

"Beckett, if you're so sure that Josh didn't do this, then let Ryan and Espo look into him."

"I can tell you right now, Castle. Josh... _didn't..._ do this, okay?"

"Because you know him?" Castle asks, narrowing his eyes again.

" _Yes,_ I know him. He's my _boyfriend!"_

"Beckett, for over half of your relationship, Josh hasn't even been in this _country_ let alone here enough for you to get to know him." And with that, Castle can tell this conversation is shifting into one he didn't want to have, and one she will be determined to win simply by yelling at him loud enough.

"He has been out of the country _helping_ people, Rick. He's not a murderer."

"Then what's _your_ crazy theory as to how his prints ended up on our victim?" Beckett shrugs her shoulders, choking on her words. "No, no, go ahead. Explain it away with some crazy theory just like I would, Beckett."

"I don't know! He-" She says, stopping and shaking her head. "He could have volunteered at the clinic she went to."

"Beckett," Castle starts, grabbing the paper up off the floor of Josh's work logs for the week, "Josh has been on call at the hospital every night except for last night, which he was supposed to spend with you, only, _once again,_ he didn't." He didn't mean to add in that last part. It slipped out, having held too much in these past few months.

"Castle, my relationship with Josh absolutely _none_ of your business, okay?" She says, pointing at the ground.

"Beckett, Josh has been absent for most of your relationship, leaving me having to pick up the slack!" Why did he say that? As he watches those words reach her ears, he wishes he could take them back.

Her eyes turn hard with anger as her face turns red with her boiling blood. " _That_ is _not_ your place in my life, Castle!" She spits.

And inside his chest, his heart falls to pieces as his resolve crumbles with it. What did he expect to happen with this? She's been trying to make it clear to him for years now, but she made it crystal clear with that. That's not his place... and it never will be. And realizing this, he just can't stand being here right now. He pushes out a shuttering breath through his nose and stands back up, rolling his shoulders back to make it look like he's leaving with some of his splintered pride intact. "You're right, Beckett."

She meets him with a hard, blank expression, her eyes glossy.

"You're absolutely right, so..." He says in a small voice, "you know, if you're so sure that Josh didn't do this then who am I to question it? I'm not a cop, after all. I'll um..." He says, making his hurt all too evident to her. He hardens himself as much as he can, burying his broken and wrenched emotions as much as he can. "I'll let you handle this on your own."

With that, he takes a step passed her with untrustworthy legs and makes for the door. As he makes it to the door, his hand on the knob, he feels himself take a pause, waiting for her to call out to him to stop him, one last ditch effort in a plea to have her say that he means something to her. But after waiting for just a second and hearing nothing, he grits his teeth and pushes open the door, quickly making his way toward the elevator, feeling Ryan and Esposito's eyes on him. His pride unwilling to let them see him so obviously heartbroken and weak, he straightens his shoulders and leaves.

"Beckett!" Montgomery calls from the bullpen.

Shaking her head, her heart constricting with the sour yet bitter feeling of shame and guilt trying to force its way stubbornly into her system, she steps out of the tech room and sees Montgomery glaring at her from his office. She sees Esposito already standing, while Ryan isn't at his desk. Gritting her teeth, she makes her way into her captain's office. "Sir?"

Montgomery pauses as the three come to stand in front of his desk. He takes a quick look out the door, "Where's Castle?"

"He left, Sir." Beckett answers emotionlessly.

And Montgomery inwardly groans. He feared this would happen whenever Ryan told him about Josh just moments ago. "Agh..." He groans and shifts his weight. "Alright, here's what's gonna happen." He says, crossing his arms. "Ryan, Esposito? You two look into the doc."

"Sir-"

"As it stands, Beckett, the evidence places Dr. Davidson as our prime suspect and that's how we're going to treat him." He stops her, watching as her jaw tenses. He looks back over to Ryan and Esposito, who are both watching Beckett carefully. "You two look into him, pull financials, track down his alibi, get him into interrogation, the whole nine. As far as _I'm_ concerned, he's just another suspect."

Beckett pushes out a heavy breath and waits for a moment. "Yes, Sir." Ryan and Esposito both say after a few seconds.

"And what about me, Sir?" Beckett asks and looks back up to Montgomery.

"Go home."

"Sir, you can't-"

"I just did, Beckett." He stops her with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "You're tired and right now, you can't be of any more help on this case. Because we _both_ know that you can't be the one to look into Davidson, you're too close."

"Sir, he didn't do this." She says, holding her anger in check with her captain.

"Then let Ryan and Esposito prove it."

Beckett lets out a frustrated breath and pushes her hand through her hair. "Sir, there's more I can do here, there's..."

"Beckett," Montgomery says in a soft, smoother voice. She looks up at him again after letting her argument fall. "You're tired and you just got off an attempted kidnapping. Let Ryan and Esposito look into the doc. Come back in the morning and then start looking into our victim's history."

* * *

She flings open her door and swings it shut, disappointed that it doesn't slam as hard as she wanted it to as she storms into her apartment. She tears her coat off her shoulders and lets it fall to the floor as she goes into her kitchen, snatching up a wine glass from the open cupboard on her way over to the wall where her wine rack is hanging.

With something like this, wine wouldn't be her first choice, but she doesn't have anything stronger. And not being in the mood to be picky, she takes the first bottle her hand finds and opens it, pouring a glass ungracefully and taking a long first swig.

Being challenged on her own relationship like that, by him of all people.

Why did her words sound so hollow, just adding more volume in the hopes he doesn't notice and actually call her on it? She leans against her island silently before the label of the wine bottle catches her eye. With her hand already on the bottom rim, she spins it around to look which bottle it was she grabbed. And when she sees it, she hears his words ring in her ears. _Leaving me having to pick up the slack!_

This is the bottle that he had sent her home with just a few months ago when Josh was still out of the country. With nothing better to do and having energy to burn off, he'd taken them to the Haunt for a quick drink. He'd picked a wine that he thought might suit her and ended up sending it home with her. She angrily rolls her eyes, pushing the bottle away and taking another long swig from her glass.

As she finishes off the alcohol, she's hesitant to pour another glass from this bottle. But it's good wine. _Very good wine,_ she thinks as her eyes find the bottle again. He knows her better than Josh does. But... no, that's just because that's another part of her life. He's her partner at the precinct. Josh is her boyfriend.

She caves and pours another guilty glass of wine from the bottle and takes another drink, much smaller and slower than the last ones. Being alone with her thoughts like this... as her mind flits about, unfocused and hazed with anger... she's not thinking of what she's supposed to right now. It could be the wine making her too introspective... but it felt like she was putting up a fight for something that... "wasn't there."

But as his tone of voice, his accusations, and anger fill her mind, she pushes all of it away. Josh didn't do this and he's going to look like a fool when Ryan and Espo prove it for her.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Sorry for the debacle that ensued with this chapter update last night. It's up now. :)  
_

 _Never said this case wasn't going to, in some way, be connected to Castle's past. Like I said, I have it mapped out. The case will start developing a bit more with this chapter. Thanks for all the ups and support I got from the last chapter! So glad you guys liked it!  
_

* * *

It's dark by the time he hears anyone else in the loft move about, while his mother is out with friends for the night and Alexis is on a group date with Ashley. But it's been dark in his office for a few hours, still and silent as he sits in his office chair with an uninteresting glass of scotch hanging from his hand. He's not in the mood to punish himself with alcohol.

"Richard? I'm home." His mother calls from the living room. He lets her go unanswered and draws in a deep sigh, mustering up enough emotional strength to talk to his family, who will definitely ask questions. This would be the second night in a row his mother will find him like this. "Richard?"

With his name being called, the lights flip on just a second later. His eyes painfully squint at having to quickly adjust to the light and he raises the hand that's holding his glass up to his face, blocking out the light.

"Ugh..." His mother groans and waves her arms in the air, "What is it this time, Richard?"

He only decides to speak when she's leaning against his desk in front of him. "She finally said it, Mother."

Martha lets out a long, frustrated sigh and rolls her eyes. Sometimes it's like dealing with Alexis and Ashley with these two. "What did she say, Richard?"

"That I've been hoping for something that's never gonna happen."

"And what prompted that?"

He shakes his head slowly and finishes off the scotch that's circling the bottom rim of the glass. "We caught a case today and we found a set of fingerprints on the victim's sleeve that belong to Josh."

Martha pauses with a raised brow before nodding slowly, realizing what caused his behavior. "I'm guessing she didn't take it too well."

"She said that he couldn't have done it. That I didn't know him and that there was another explanation."

She gives him a moment before windmilling her hand and is urging him to continue. "And... then you said?"

"The truth." He says, giving her his first, sad, broken look. "Or... what I _hoped_ was the truth." He's met by nothing but the jangle of her jewelry and silence, pulling it out of him. "I said that Josh has been gone overseas for over half their relationship so she couldn't really know him like that. And she... reacted exactly as expected and... said that I didn't know what I was talking about. When I brought their relationship into question, she said it was none of my business."

Martha then thinks that Beckett wasn't exactly lying when she told him that, but telling her heartbroken son that wouldn't be doing him any favors. So, she stays silent and lets him continue.

"Then..." He says, his eyes looking down into his empty glass, his voice struggling to remain steady, "I told her that while Josh was out saving the world... I was left behind having to pick up his slack."

"Oh, Richard..." Martha softly groans, shaking her head.

"Which she replied to by saying that that wasn't my place in her life. I decided to yield to my fate after that and come home."

Martha's brow knits together at his use of words, "Richard... are you really saying that-"

"I'm done, Mother." He says in a hollow, weak voice. "I've..." He starts, his voice starting to get traction as it grows angry, "I've fallen for this with nearly every woman I've ever been with. I've _always_ fallen the fantasy I build around them, and that fantasy _never_ comes true. I've always waited around for women to show me what I think they could be in my head, but they never do. And when I met her, I thought that... that I'd finally met someone where it wasn't a fantasy. But..." He says, unclenching his jaw and shaking his head, his heart breaking as he tells himself he needs to accept it, "but it was."

"Richard-"

"I fooled myself into thinking that if I just proved myself enough to her that she'd finally give me a chance for once. But this time, I have to just _wake up_ and accept the fact that I'm just not the kind of guy she wants."

He sees Alexis enter the room, but is too far deep into his long process of wallowing to stop now.

And Alexis sees what the situation is. She's seen that look on her father's face before. And she knows that if someone doesn't pull him out of this, it's going to be a while before he can do it himself. When she was little, he seemed to cope with it better since she wasn't totally independent. But now that she's older, he has no one to dote on.

Rick continues even as his daughter is coming around the other side of his desk and kneeling down behind his chair, putting her arms around him.

"I just have to realize that she'll never see in me whatever it is she sees in Josh. I mean..." He says, sneering and tossing his hand forward, "the guy is the male centerfold version of Mother Teresa, for god's sake. He's a doctor."

"Need I remind you, Richard," His mother starts, and he sadly finds her eyes as he's reaching up and putting his hand over Alexis's, who's hugging him from behind, "that you are a best-selling novelist whose work has touched millions of people."

"I just write mystery novels, Mother."

And when he says that, Alexis can't take it anymore. "Mind if I use this, Dad?" She asks, pointing to his open laptop on his desk. He waves his hand, giving her permission and she quickly turns the laptop toward her and types in the address to his website.

"Richard, Beckett may have had a bad reaction to all this, as any of us would if such a thing were to happen, but you are not _really_ ready to just give up on her after that, are you?"

"Mother," He starts, looking at her with a serious brow, "the only reason I know what it's like to kiss her is because there was a guy with a _gun_ standing behind us and she would have gotten killed if she didn't. The only reason I know what it's like to have her fall asleep in my arms is because we were locked in a freezer together and had to huddle together for warmth. The only reason I know what it's like to have her throw her arms around me without reservation is because we were two seconds away from getting vaporized by a bomb. She probably does all that with Josh and doesn't even give it a second thought."

It's then that Alexis starts reading. "Dear Richard Castle, I'm writing you to let you know that your books have truly helped me out through a difficult time in my life. My husband was recently diagnosed with brain cancer and your books are the only thing that keeps me going. Your writing, the way good always finds a way to triumph has given me and my husband hope. You've touched our lives and have given us strength. From the bottom of our hearts, we truly thank you."

As she finishes reading, she puts her arms back around her father and looks over his shoulder. "Where'd you find that?"

"The fan forum on your website. You should check it more often."

"Yeah, but that's probably-"

"It was the newest entry, Dad."

He feels a smile start pekaing at the edges of his lips as he feels his mother and daughter's loving eyes on him. "I love you guys." He says, looking over his shoulder at his smiling daughter, then up at his mother. "And... I may never love another woman like I love Kate Beckett, but... I owe it to myself to at least be with someone who loves me back." He says, crashing back down to the matter at hand.

And Martha and Alexis both nod, before Alexis is shaking him, " _I_ love you, Dad."

He softly chuckles as he knocks his head against hers. "Yeah, but you're my daughter. You're biologically obligated to love me."

"Yeah, but I do it anyway." She rebutts and places a kiss on his temple.

He can't help but feel lifted by his family. And now, he's feeling a responsibility to be happy for them, to end his wallowing for at least tonight. "Why don't we order a pizza and make fun of a bad movie together?"

"Ah," His mother exhales and jumps off the edge of his desk, her arms in the air, "now _that's_ an idea." Alexis gives her dad a squeeze before standing up. Rick pushes himself out of his chair and walks around his desk to follow his mother into the living room. "And I wouldn't worry about Beckett, Richard. Maybe she'll come around." She says and places her hand on his arm.

And when he sees his mother's hand on his arm, her hand fully pressed against his shirt sleeve, his mind starts to click things into place. It's a standard comforting gesture used by doctors.

"Richard, what is it?" Martha asks, taking a step in front of him.

He lets his eyes drift shut. "I think I know how we were able to get Josh's full handprint off the victim." But he can't go back there, slinking back to tell her something she probably figured out already. "But she's probably figured it out by now. So, let's just forget about it."

* * *

Beckett sits quetly at her desk the next morning.

Ryan and Esposito are in the conference room with the doors closed, keeping her away from them investigating Josh. But right now, she can't bring herself to think about that. It's just nearing ten o'clock and she's been putting off heading down to the clinic the victim visited days before her death to do a round of interviews. Her eyes flick up from her paperwork to the empty chair next to her desk. If he was coming, he would have been here by now.

But she's still hoping that he'll come by, at least to act like their fight yesterday never happened.

As much as she feels it's wrong, she's thinking about the wrong relationship. Why is it she's more worried about this case blowing up her partnership with Castle than her relationship with Josh? And why is she more inclined to go ask Castle for forgiveness than she is Josh that he's wrapped up in all this? She likes Josh, but... even last night, she was still angry at Castle more than she was worried about Josh being hurt by all this. Or at least it seems that way in retrospect.

It's probably just because she's being kept away from Ryan and Espo looking into him. But they told her when she arrived this morning that he was due here just after ten for questioning.

She looks over her shoulder at the sound of the elevator doors opening, a small part of her getting her hopes up, but when she just sees two patrolmen step off and make their way across the precinct, she shakes her head and stands up, her eyes looking down at the empty chair one last time before moving toward the elevator.

* * *

"So, how you wanna play it?" Ryan asks, standing in observation next to Espo. "Good cop, bad cop?"

"Nah, let's go for the ego." Esposito says and starts toward interrogation.

Josh looks between a mixture of anxious, worried, frustrated, and oddly relaxed as he taps his finger against the table. But ignoring it, Ryan follows Espo into the box and throws on a smile. The door opens and Espo is the first to speak. "Hey, Josh!" He says in a friendly tone.

Josh looks over at them with a straight brow, leaning forward and looking out the door before they close it behind them. "What's going on? Where's Kate?"

"What, you thought you could sweet talk your way out of this?" Ryan asks as he paces his way toward the chair next to Esposito.

"Out of _what?_ What the hell is this about?"

Esposito pulls a photo from the case file and slides it across the table as he sits down. "You know her?"

Josh picks up the photo and gives it a few seconds to look at it. "She uh... she seems familiar, but I can't quite place it. Why?"

Ryan speaks up then, pulling out a photo from the file and putting it in front of him. "Because she was found dead yesterday with _your_ prints on her clothing."

"So, I probably treated her for something." He shrugs.

"You don't seem too broken up about her being dead." Esposito says and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms.

Josh looks over at him with a straight brow, "I see dozens of patients a day, you'll have to excuse me if I can't afford to get emotionally invested in every single one of them."

"Whoa," Ryan says, raising a hand, "take it easy, _chips."_

"Ha..." Esposito laughs, "he does sorta look like..."

"Doesn't he?" Ryan asks, looking over to Espo with a smile.

"Look," Josh says and leans forward, his finger on the photo of the body, "I'm _sorry_ that this girl is dead, but if you dragged me in here to try and say _I_ had something to do with it, you're crazy. I probably saw her for something recently. Like I said, she looks familiar, but I can't place it."

"Well, we looked into your recent patient list at the hospital and her name never came up." Esposito says, tossing his pateint list in front of him.

Josh looks at him with an angry brow, "The hospital isn't the only place I treat patients. I volunteer my time at a free clinic in the city when I can."

"And you _still_ can't remember her?" Ryan asks, lifting the photo of the victim up to him. "Because she visited a clinic before her death."

"Look, if I had to guess..." Josh says, picking up the photo again, "You know what, now that you mentioned the clinic, I think I do remember her."

"Oh, you do?" Espo asks.

"Yeah, I think she came in and asked me to check her for diabetes. I think she said she was worried about the chances of her having it and wanted a test done."

"She say why?" Ryan asks.

"No, but if I remember right, her tests came up negative."

"So, if all that's true, you won't have any trouble telling us where you were the night before last between nine and ten PM." Espo says with a smirk.

Something in Josh's demeanor shifts as he takes too long a pause. "Yeah, I... had a meeting with a charity at a coffee shop. It ran long."

"Except," Ryan says, taking out another sheet of paper, "we called Doctors Without Borders and they said they didn't have anything scheduled."

Josh looks over at him with an angry scowl. "That's because it wasn't _with_ Doctors Without Borders. Ever since I canceled my trip to be with Kate, I've been looking into getting involved in something more local. I had a meeting with someone who was looking to get something started but nothing really came out of it." Ryan and Espo both look at him, believing his story. "You can ask the coffee shop. We were there until about nine forty-five before we left." Josh looks away toward the door before lowering himself down into his chair.

* * *

Kate walks into doors of the clinic, seeing homley patients lined up in the waiting room as she steps up to the reception desk, flashing her badge. "I'm Detective Beckett with the NYPD."

The two nurses stop and look at each other. "Is this about Dr. Adams?" The older one asks.

Kate looks between the two nurses, who are looking over at her with arched brows. "I'm sorry?"

The younger nurse then speaks, "Two other detectives from the..."

"Ninth." The other says.

"- _N_ _inth_ precinct were just here." She continues. "One of our regular volunteers was found murdered in the bay this morning. They came and asked about him."

"Uh..." She says, her mind whirlling, needing... needing a crazy theory to help her make sense of it, "no, uh..." She says, pulling a photo out from her folder. "I'm here about Vanessa Lewis." She says, handing the photo to the older nurse. "Her body was found in an alley yesterday afternoon and we've been tracking her movements. We have reason to believe she visited this clinic before her death."

"Uh... I'm sorry, Detective. You'll forgive me if the faces seem to... blend together after a while." The older nurse says, looking up at her with the photo still in her hand.

But the younger nurse looks over to the photo, her brow pinched. "I think I recognize her." She says, taking the photo. "Yeah." She nods, "She came in a few days ago. I think she saw... Dr. Davidson."

A woosh of air is brought out of her, of relief almost. "Doctor... _Josh_ Davidson?" She asks.

"Yeah, that's him." So, he was with the victim. "I remember now, she came in looking worried but she left looking pretty relaxed."

"Do you uh..." She says, her mind trying and failing to click things into place, "remember what she came in for?"

"I'm sorry for sounding insensetive, Detective, but..." The younger nurse says, looking over to the older nurse with a sad expression, "You hear one sob story after another here, they all sort of start to blend together."

Kate nods and takes the photo back from the nurse, putting it back into her folder. "No, I understand. But..." She says, looking around and taking out a pen, "I'll need to interview your staff if that's not a problem. The circumstances of Vanessa Lewis's death are forcing us to take extra steps."

"That shouldn't be a problem, Detective."

She can hear Castle's voice in her head, telling her some crazy theory that connects it to her case.

* * *

It's much later in the day before Beckett leaves the clinic, finishing off a long round of interviews. It would have taken half the time if she had her partner with her. But after what she said yesterday, she can't just out of nowhere ask him to help her out on this case.

But she returns to the precinct just around three and goes into Montgomery's office to inform him of her findings at the clinic and to ask to get in contact with the Ninth about the Adams' case.

And when she closes the door behind her, Lanie is just stepping off the elevator and is heading into the conference room, where she sees Javi and Ryan standing at the table with a scared look in their eye. "Javi, as much as I enjoy these impromptu booty calls, I have bodies downstairs needs tending." She says with a smile.

"Lane..." He says, moving passed her and closing the door, sounding too serious. "This is serious."

"Well, what's this about?" She asks, following Javi with her eyes as he moves back over to Ryan.

"We uh..." Ryan starts, looking over to Javi for permission to tell her. "We managed to track down Josh's alibi for the time of the murder."

Lanie, not really having any positive or negative feelings toward Josh, looks between them and shrugs her shoulders. She didn't think Josh murdered anyone but is worried about Kate's feelings toward all this. "Okay."

"Yeah, we..." Ryan says, rifling through the papers in front of him on the table, "we looked into his finacials and looked up the coffee shop he said he was at that night." He says and pulls out a photo.

"We pulled images from a traffic cam across the street... and..." Javi says in a small, worried voice. After a few silent moments, Ryan hands her the photo and it sends a quick burning fire into her blood. But she keeps it under control.

"Is this why I'm here?"

"We figured you'd want to be the one to tell her." Ryan says and looks up at her with his head lowered.

"I can _not_ be the person to tell her about this, Kevin."

"You're her best friend, Lanie." Javi argues.

"I'll deal with the aftermath as best I can, because there _will_ be aftermath. But we all know who this has to come from."

"Lane, he left here in a bad way yesterday."

"He's her _partner,_ Javi. And if anyone on this planet can crack through that thick-ass skull of hers, it's him."

"Come on, Lanie." Ryan says and shifts his weight, "You're her best friend. You're telling me she didn't tell you about Josh before anybody else?"

"I found out about Josh the same way you guys did!" She argues. After letting out a small sigh, all of them looking worried, she starts. "Listen, I'll be ready to help her pull her out of this as best I can, but I think it would be best coming from Castle."

Ryan and Esposito look between each other for a moment.

"At the very least, he should know about this."

* * *

 _A/N: The next chapter will have a scene I've had written in my head for quite some time, and is one of the scenes that got me to start writing this story. Let me know what you think of it when I post it! :)_


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Again, so sorry about the debacle that went down with the last chapter. I posted it before the 24 hour layover time the site has. So, if you haven't seen it yet, go read it!_

And as I said, this chapter has a scene in it that got me to start writing this story. It's the second part of this chapter. Let me know! :)

* * *

He breathes a sigh of deep relief when he hits send on the email. Just before the due date that Gina's been on his case about and he finally managed to make it. The chapter having a lot of conflict helped. Conflict is always easier to write. He managed to get through it, pouring more of his recent frustrations and heart ache into his writing than usual.

He was right. He told himself last night that getting over her and accepting that she just wants someone else over him would be a long, painful process, even if he is to finish off the Nikki Heat series. He thought that if he just toughed it out, or maybe if they just got more wrapped up in one of their 'just as friends' dinners they seem to drag each other into once in a while, that she'd at least give it a shot. Then once that happened, he could then make her love him without all the pretense.

But all that's gone.

He shakes his head and stands up. Maybe she sensed that something has been bugging him and is just mad at him for keeping secrets from her. He thought he'd put that time behind him. He thought he'd moved passed it, but it's been nagging at him lately, ever since Espo started getting on him. He doesn't know what he had to do. With the amount he's been thinking about it lately, he probably fooled himself into thinking that he moved passed it when he really just distracted himself from it.

Because he wasn't home for a few months before he met Kyra. The battles with her family's objections to him kept his mind off that. Then when that ended by her never speaking to him again, he met Meredith, who was about as distracting as a laser pointer is to a hyperactive cat. And when she gave him Alexis, he never thought about his time as a hired gun again.

So maybe he didn't 'move' passed it, but... it's too late now anyway.

He lets out a deep sigh as his eyes find the hard back copy of Voltaire sitting on the top shelf of the book case, where it's sat gathering dust since he put it up there. The feeling of that shockwave from the impact hits him as he hears a knock on the door. Squeezing his eyes shut, he moves through the living room and answers the door, tossing on a fake, charming grin to greet whoever it is who's at the door.

But when he sees it's Ryan and Espo, his grin falls flat then turns into a blank stare as his eyes find the case file in Ryan's hand. He can tell that Esposito isn't too thrilled to be here. "You solve the case yet?" He asks, pointing to the case file and turns back into the loft, leaving the door open.

"We have CSU digging through the victim's hard drive looking for deleted emails. Other than that, we're hitting a dead end." Ryan says, tapping the file against his hand.

"Is that why you're here? Beckett need some ludicrous theory?" He asks snidely, shrugging his shoulders and walking backward.

"Castle," Esposito says, leaning his head back and squaring off his shoulders. "We got something you need to see." He says in a serious tone.

Pushing out a breath, Castle takes a step forward as Ryan is opening the file in his hands and is beginning to explain. "We managed to track down Josh's alibi for the time of the murder." He says, flipping through photos.

"So you're rubbing it in my face that I was wrong?"

"Castle." Esposito says again, trying to straighten him out with his tone.

"What is it?" He asks, looking between Ryan and Esposito.

"Well," Ryan starts, looking over to Espo, who's still glaring at Castle, "he's not guilty of murder, but... he _is_ guilty of something else." He says and hands him a photo.

Curious, and worried, he takes the photo, gauging Ryan's reaction towards the photo as he holds it down in front of him. He pushes out a small sigh before looking down and what he sees sends a plethora of emotions into his system that makes him unable to think straight.

Anger, hatred, relief, happiness, joy, frustration, grief, sadness, longing... _take your pick, Rick,_ he thinks to himself as he turns towards the kitchen and paces away from them.

He's looking at a photo of something that should send him jumping for joy, but... he cares about her too much to be happy about this. It's a photo of Josh kissing another woman. And it's not just a quick, friendly peck on the cheek. It's a deep, passionate kiss. The woman is a small, petite blonde, who has her hands framing Josh's face as he pulls her into him. Looking at this photo, he feels nauseous.

He turns and paces his way back over to Ryan, who's holding another photo. He looks up with a lowered, cocked brow and takes it, seeing the image is that of them hailing a cab together, with her hugged into his side. There are a million voices shouting in his head right now. One is telling him that if he ever sees Josh again to make it known that he's not just a writer for doing this to her. Another one is telling him to thank him for giving Beckett a real reason to dump him so he can have his shot. Another one is telling him that if Beckett really wants to be with Josh and loves him, then she should and they should try to work this out.

Like he never bothered to do.

But... like she said, it's none of his business.

He looks up after pacing back towards the kitchen and turns back to Ryan and Esposito, who are watching him intently. "Why are you showing me this?" He says, letting the photos fall to his side.

Ryan looks over to Espo, then hesitantly speaks. "We thought... you could tell her."

" _Me?"_ He asks, pointing at himself with the photos. "Ryan, I'm the _last_ person that she should hear this from."

"You're her partner, Castle." Esposito says.

"Have Lanie tell her. She's her best friend." He says, tossing the photos down onto the dining table.

"Lanie's the one who sent us here." Ryan says with a shrug. "She said that if anyone knew how to tell her, it would be you."

He shakes his head at that, his eyes narrowing. "Why is it that everyone seems to think I have this magical ability to get through to her?" He asks in a frustrated voice. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I am the _last_ person she ever listens to!"

"You think she listens to us?" Ryan asks sarcastically, motioning between him and Espo with the case file in his hands.

"And besides," Castle starts again quickly, his shoulders sinking in defeat, "her relationship with Josh isn't any of my business." He says and paces away from them.

"So what?" Espo says, slowly starting to pace his way toward Castle, "You just gonna abandon her?"

His wording sends a shudder into his system, but he stamps it down. "She doesn't want me as her partner half the time as it is, Espo."

"Look, I don't know what they taught you as a gun for hire, but in the military, we don't leave anyone behind!"

"I _broke_ that rule because I was _ordered to!_ " He spits through clenched teeth, his eyes burning with a familiar look that Esposito has seen a hundred times before. Esposito stops as Castle looks down to the floor, his jaw tight and shoulders shaking. After a moment, he looks at him sideways. "You don't know what I did, Esposito."

Espo's voice softens and he leans back, "Which is why I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt." He says, letting Castle cool himself down with a few deep breaths. "But come on, Castle. You're telling me you wouldn't have acted the same way if it was one of your ex-wives's finger prints we found?"

Castle looks back up at him with narrowed eyes, "I wouldn't be _surprised_ if it was one of my ex-wives's finger prints we found." He sarcastically cracks.

But it doesn't shake Esposito. "Well, what if it was her's?" He asks in a soft voice, bringing him back down to the matter at hand, bringing his point home.

And with that, Castle knows he's right. If someone had accused her of murder, he would have defended her just as vehemently... especially with such circumstantial evidence. "Listen..." He says, his eyes finding the photos on the table for a moment before he turns back over to face Ryan and Esposito. "Someone has to tell her about this." He says in a serious tone. "And... take it from me... there is no _good_ way to tell her." He sees Ryan nods, looking down to the floor. "But there is a bad way... and that's having me tell her."

Ryan looks back up to Castle with his hands in his pockets. "So, what are we supposed to say?" He asks, watching as Castle picks up the photos off the table and hands them back to Esposito.

Castle gives him a hollow chuckle, "You make it sound like there's something you _can_ say, Ryan."

* * *

Kate sits curled up in the corner of her couch later that night, a glass of wine sitting on her coffee table with silent tears falling down her cheeks. This time, she consciously went after a bottle that he gave her.

There's a soft knock on her door that snaps her out of her mind, but she makes no move to answer it. "Kate?" Lanie's voice calls through the door. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes, still making no real effort to let her in. "Come on, Girl. I know you're in there."

She lets out a small breath and stands up, padding over to the door, unlocking the deadbolt and turning the knob then pads her way back toward her couch as Lanie is quickly making her way inside and around her with a large bag on her shoulder.

"Don't worry, Girl. I have _just_ what you need." Lanie says, pulling the bag open as Kate falls back down into the corner of her couch, picking up her wine glass as she does, her eyes going down into the liquid as it swirls about. Lanie comes around and sets the bag down on her coffee table and starts to pull items out. "White cheddar popcorn, the highest calorie ice-cream I could find, and... a horror movie." She says, looking down at the cover. "I don't know what it's about, but the cover has a picture of a woman stabbing four men to death with a kitchen knife."

Kate lets out a small laugh and shakes her head.

"I figured it was appropriate." She says with a shrug and falls down on the couch next to her.

"No, Lanie," She starts in a small voice with tears still silently falling from her eyes, "that's really sweet, but... I'm just not feeling up to it, okay?"

Lanie lets out a sigh and leans back, curling her legs up under her. "So... who was she?"

"Apparently..." She says, leaning her head down onto her fist, "she was an old flame from med school. I guess they were pretty intense before their careers took them in different directions. Whenever she heard he was back in town, she got in touch with him to get a blood drive started and things... quickly escalated." She says as another tear leaks out of her eye. "He said that it was a mistake and that he was sorry, but..." She lets her words fall, shaking her head and looking up, wiping the tracks of her tears away.

"Oh, sweetie," Lanie starts, reaching over and putting her hand on her forearm, "I know it hurts."

"No, Lanie, you don't understand." She says with a sad smile. "I'm not crying because it hurts."

Lanie stops and looks at her with a quirked brow.

"I'm crying... because it doesn't." She says with a sad smile still going across her face. "Josh and I were together for almost nine months. But when I saw those pictures... I didn't feel a thing, Lanie." She says, tears coldly pushing off her lashes. "I was more heartbroken when I didn't get my _coffee_ this morning."

Lanie feels something about this conversation shift and thinks she is starting to understand. "Really?"

"Lanie..." She says, looking over to her with a raised brow, "there were moments between us that were so intense, I couldn't look him in the eye." She says, still sadly smiling, "Because I _knew_ if I did, I would end up kissing him." She says with a shake of her head. "And then there where moments when I couldn't look away... because I was waiting for it to happen."

"We're... not... talking about Josh here anymore, are we?"

"Lanie, he's gone from the precinct for two days... and I miss him more than when Josh was gone from the _country_... for two _months."_

"So, we're _not_ talking about Josh, then." Lanie says, lifting her hand.

"You know, when Josh and I were talking, he told me that the night he came back after we were locked in that freezer, he was in the ambulance when he woke up. He said that he woke up from one of the worst cases of hypothermia he'd ever seen someone survive... and you wanna know the first word that came out of his mouth?"

Lanie looks over at Kate, who's still in tears, waiting for her to continue.

She smiles sadly again and nods her head. "It was 'Beckett'."

Kate shakes her head and looks away as her tears start to burn, a silence falling over them as Lanie reaches over for the wine glass sitting on the table, taking a sip.

"And then that _kiss._ "

" _Mbph!"_ Lanie chokes, spitting up the wine on her hand, swallowing what's left of it roughly. "I'm sorry, the what?"

Kate shakes her head and looks over at Lanie again. "Whenever Lockwood had Ryan and Espo, we had to get passed an armed guard without alerting him, and he had the idea to act like a lost, drunken couple. But it wasn't working..." She draws in a long breath, her body buzzing with that same feeling she got that night, "and he kissed me."

Lanie blinks, "...And?"

"Lanie..." She says with another sad shake of her head, "I never even got a _fraction_ of that from Josh."

"Wait, so..." she stops her, readjusting herself on the couch, "you're not mad at Josh for cheating on you?"

"I can't be, Lanie." She says with a shrug of her shoulders, her voice still a soft, soiled whisper. "Because it was only a matter of time before I did it to him. Josh made me realize that. I mean... give us a weird case to solve and a bottle of wine at the end, we would have ended up doing the _exact_ same thing, Lanie."

"Kate, I sure as hell hope we're talking about the same person here."

"Lanie, if I'm more heart broken that Castle doesn't bring me coffee for _one_ morning than I am when my own boyfriend cheats on me... I don't know what else that could mean."

Kate takes one last, long, soiled breath before she feels her heart grow inside her chest.

"I'm in love with him, Lanie."

* * *

 _A/N: Before I have to respond to any more questions about this, and before the anon reviews start coming in..._

 _Yes, I left out who told her and her talking to Josh. Why, you may ask? Because I am telling that part of the story in the next chapter because it will be more fulfilling to the story in the next chapter, and if I had written that in this chapter, I would end up just retelling it in the next, which would be a waste of words, and (in my creative, authoritical opinion) would be kind of boring to read a second time. So I'm going to let it be known in the next chapter. :)_


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Loved the response I got from the last chapter. And this one has yet another scene that I've had written in my head for a long time. It's near the end, let me know if you find it. Kinda hard to miss. ;)_

* * *

She draws in a deep breath passed the nervous clench in her throat as she sees his door come into view, walking down the hall slowly.

It's the next morning, just after nine o'clock on Saturday and she feels too anxious for comfort. There's no excuse she can honestly make, no two-faced lie she can keep telling herself, no way to just write it off as 'seeing things'. She feels obligated now to go to him, tell him that he's the one she's been hiding from with Josh. Because if he wasn't with Gina at the time, she never would have started dating Josh.

On hesitant and wobbly legs, she comes to stand at his door and raises a hand, rapping on the door with her knuckle, her heart in her throat. She remembers all too well the way she acted towards him last she saw him. She said things she can't take back and those things hurt him more deeply than she wanted to admit at the time, things that she didn't mean and only said because he was doing something that she couldn't; question her relationship with Josh.

But now, her body tenses as she hears him approach the door and sees the door fling open. Her eyes quickly find him and the air is stolen from her lungs. She always forgets how good he looks in deep blue. Wearing a long-sleeved blue button-down with gray pinstripes, it brings out his deep, sapphire eyes so much that if there weren't so many weeds to cut through between them, she'd be jumping him without warning.

There's a silence between them as she hears him let out a long sigh and sees him shift his weight after she looks down to the floor in embarrassing shame. Seeing her like this, even though he still got that swarm of butterflies in his stomach, standing quietly with her hands clasped together in front of her, in a pair of black slacks and a gray turtle neck, her hair tumbling down her shoulders in soft curls, he feels a tug of war between his heart, mind, and body.

"I take it they told you." He says in a low voice.

She flashes a smile despite herself and nods, "Ryan and Espo showed me the pictures right before we left for the day." She says with her eyes still facing the floor between them. Well, he clearly knows about it already. "I take it you already saw them."

He's hesitant to tell her that they came by to have him tell her about what Josh did to her. It's probably going to come out since she's making no real move to end this conversation quickly. "They stopped by yesterday, yeah."

She might as well start with admitting guilt. "I uh..." She says, nodding her head and looking up at him after a few moments, "I made a pretty big fool of myself," She says and looks him in the eye, seeing a wistful arch in his brow, "defending Josh the way I did."

"Well," He says, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders, "far be it from me to defend Josh after what he did, but... you were right, in the end." He says in a soft, steady voice. "He didn't kill anyone."

She lets out a hollow chuckle under her breath and nods her head, a smile prickling at the edges of her lips. "Still..." She says and looks up into his eyes again, drawn by his gaze, "I shouldn't have said what I did." She says, thinking back to that plainly hurt look in his eyes right before he left two days before. A pang of guilt hits her as the words sour her mouth when she remembers them. "It was pretty hurtful."

He takes a pause, taking her in. She wouldn't be here if she didn't regret what she said. "No, you were," He stops when her eyes find him again, her brow arched, "you were defending someone you cared about. And..." He says with a nod, "the evidence was pretty circumstantial."

She flashes him a quick smile, "There was still evidence, Castle. And I should have followed it."

All he can do is nod as a silence besets them, him still hanging onto the edge of the door while she stands looking down at the floor in his doorway.

"You wanna-"

"Can I-" They speak over each other. She laughs with a smile as they both stop, feeling a twinge of awkwardness sink in between them. "Can I come in?"

Noticing he's smiling at her softly, he steps to the side and lowers his head, letting her inside. When she steps by him and into the loft, she can't help but draw in a long whiff of his cologne, being pulled in by its alluring scent. "So, I take it to mean you talked to Josh." He says behind her as he closes the door.

She smiles and looks over her shoulder at him, "Yeah, he came by last night." She wants to tell him everything Josh said to her last night, but putting it in the context of Josh might not be the best idea right now. "I guess the woman was his ex-girlfriend from med school." She tells him as she comes to a stop by the stairs and watches as he paces around in front of her, a knot in his brow. "They had dated for about a year and a half before their careers took them on separate paths. I guess they were pretty intense and... when they met up with each other, it snowballed."

Rick lets out a breath and narrows his eyes. "You say that like it matters."

She lowers her brow, being confused by the fact that he's angry when she's not. "Well, Castle, he said it was a mistake." She says nonchalantly.

"You're damn _right,_ it's a mistake." He says in a raised voice, making his anger very evident.

And it's throwing her off. He just meets her gaze with an angry glare before he shakes his head and paces his way towards the kitchen. "Castle," She starts, following him, "it's not like me and Josh were ever really all that serious. I mean..." She says, coming to a stop in front of him as he turns and leans back against the island, "we both knew that we were just looking for something... kinda casual when we started dating."

He looks over to her with a regretful, sad arch in his brow, his eyes half-lidded. "That shouldn't matter, Kate."

Her heart leaps when he uses her first name. Calling her 'Beckett' and her calling him 'Castle' is a sort of unspoken buffer between them, a means to keep things professional and compartmentalized. But his words can't help but draw her in. This is clearly hurting him more than it did her. She lets out a small breath and silently asks him to continue.

"When you're with someone, no matter the circumstances, there's no excuse for doing what Josh did to you." Her heart swells, hearing that he honestly cares this much about her, just like Josh said he did. _I care about you, Kate, but I could never care about you as much as he does._ His words float around in her head as she looks over to Rick, who's looking at her, almost heartbroken. "It doesn't matter if they were _soulmates,_ it doesn't make what Josh did right in any sense of the word."

"Well," She starts, taking a small, meandering step towards him as he crosses his arms and leans back against the island, "I guess you're right. And he..." She starts, shoving her hands into the back pockets of her slacks, "said it was a mistake and that he was sorry when he explained what happened. He said he knew it was going to come out whenever the boys asked him for an alibi for the time of the murder."

He lets out a small sigh as he nods his head. "Listen... Kate... I don't want you to think I took any joy away from seeing those pictures. Ryan and Esposito wanted me to be the one to tell you, but... I didn't it would have been a good idea."

She smiles, "Castle," She sighs, shaking her head, "honestly? I was more hurt that I didn't get my coffee yesterday." The amount of honesty she had to use to say that makes her feel vulnerable, just the first step in what's going to be a long process of telling him how she feels.

And her admission throws him for a loop, stunning him. But now, he's wondering which side of her was the real one. This softer, smiling, graceful side that she's shown him under all that emotional armor of her's, or that angry spitting cobra that told him it was none of his business. "No, Beckett, you were right the other day. Your relationship with Josh was none of my business."

She can't help but feel a stab of let down when he calls her 'Beckett', but it's brief. She lets out a sigh and looks over at him, wanting to pull him out of this, "You're my partner, Rick."

His heart skips a beat when he hears his first name said in her voice with her tone soft... and almost caring.

"I mean, I liked Josh, but... I can't say that what you said about him wasn't true. And I think we were both fooling ourselves when we decided to give it another shot. And..." She starts again, taking another meandering step toward him as she shifts her weight, now standing just a few feet away from him, "maybe you were... more right than I wanted to admit." She says and looks down at the floor.

"Well... that doesn't necessarily mean you were wrong." He says and shrugs his broad shoulders, shoving his hands into his pockets. He seems more open to her now when he uncrosses his arms, more... willing. But there's a flash of shame that goes across his features, "You were right, it wasn't my place to say those things."

"That doesn't mean they weren't true, Rick." She says in a soft, caring voice.

His mind is telling him not to get sucked in... but his heart is telling him that she's making an effort to suck him in at all, and that's something, at least. "Well..." He starts as Kate looks at him with a soft smile, spinning herself from side to side with her toe pointed to the ground, her hands still shoved into her back pockets. "I'm sorry... that Josh cheated on you."

She smiles sadly and nods.

"You deserve a lot better, because..." He says, a faraway hurt glazing his eyes over, "no one deserves that."

And it's in his tone, in his demeanor, in his voice, in his eyes. There's a reason why he's more hurt by this than she is. "Who was it, Rick?"

His breath catches, not meaning to seem so obvious about it. "What do you mean?"

"You wouldn't be this upset about all this if you haven't been there, so... I guess I'm just wondering who it was."

He lets out a long sigh, his heart walling itself off from that time in his life as he just shakes his head. "It was no one." He deflects.

She nods, understanding that he wouldn't be so eager to talk about it. "Well, I don't think you would have gotten back together with Gina if it was her." When he doesn't make a move to correct her, she continues with her questioning, following her train of thought. "And you seemed to have too much left over for it to have been Kyra." She says as the thought comes to her.

And when the only other woman she knows about comes to mind, she starts to feel heartbroken for him.

"It was Meredith, wasn't it?"

He lets out a painful sigh through his nose and nods slowly, "Yeah." She doesn't push him, but her soft... almost loving hazel eyes are pulling it out of him. "After I realized Kyra wasn't coming back, I went after someone to... just have fun with. We ended up getting married and she only committed to it because she ended up getting pregnant. But... once she felt she got her body back... she... ran off to have fun again. And since I was having fun raising Alexis and she wasn't... she decided that it would be fun to run off to Malibu with a producer."

Her heart is urging her body to go to him, urging her arms to wrap themselves around him and comfort him. But she can feel that they have yet to cross that boundary.

"So... you can imagine why I have a certain anger towards someone who feels the need to step out on someone that they're supposed to be committed to. And Josh is _especially_ no exception." He tells her, putting himself back together.

She laughs softly, "Well, it's not like Josh and I were _married_ or anything, Castle. I mean... yeah, it might be different if we were in love but..." her eyes find him and her heart soars looking into his eyes, that familiar magnetic trap quickly ensnaring them both, "we weren't."

His heart lets himself pull out of his heartache because at least she's admitting that she wasn't in love with Josh... like he told himself she was. He nods, unable to look away from her eyes. "That still doesn't make it right." He says, shoving off the island and taking a step forward.

"Well," She says, her tone shifting into casual, "do we really have any room to talk?" She asks, pulling her hand out and leaning against the stool.

His brow knits, "What do you mean?"

"Well," She says again, shrugging her shoulders, " _we_ kissed, didn't we?"

His heart leapfrogs when she mentions that, the air turning hard in his lungs. "Don't think I don't feel bad about that." He says, half-way lying, his brow quirked.

"It was _your_ idea, Castle."

"The guy had a _gun,_ what else was I supposed to do?"

"And the best thing you could come up with was to kiss me?" She challenges with a grin, her brow raised.

"Well, it _worked,_ didn't it?"

She giggles, her smile splitting her face in two as her eyes sparkle up at him, doubling over as she laughs. And when she stands back up, she quickly finds his eyes and her body freezes. He's softly smirking at her, looking into her eyes with a deep, half-lidded gaze as her admission to Lanie from the night before comes floating into her mind. _And then there were moments when I couldn't look away because I was waiting for it to happen._

And for once, she decides not to fight it.

But Rick's mind is battling it out with his heart, and his body is protesting, but slowly gaining ground by the second. His mind is telling him to be rational, that she just had her heart broken and that she's in a vulnerable place, not to take advantage. His heart is telling him that despite the fight he's putting him, he's still in love with her and that he finally has his shot. But his body just wants her... and it's winning.

Slowly leaning forward, he's breathing hard as they drift closer, his eyes slowly fluttering shut as his lips tingle in anticipation, his heart pounding as he feels her just inches away. Her blood is rushing in her ears as she closes her eyes and feels herself lean towards him, her neck craning to meet him. It's a few tense seconds before she feels his lips softly brush against hers, teasing each other with a feathering first kiss, testing the waters. It's light, almost not there, but it sends her weightless as his lips softly feather against hers for just a second.

When their lips stop, it's a quick second to find out what just happened and wait for one of them to stop it. But... when she doesn't... he caves. In one quick motion, he leans forward and captures her lips fully, his hands grasping her waist in a tight grip, tugging her forward.

Her heart slams against her chest as her lungs struggle with the air they're holding, her nerves vibrating and buzzing at his quick, demanding action. Her body quickly goes weak as he holds her lips against him, her hands still hanging out in the air by her sides. After a few intense seconds, his lips move again, capturing her in another full, strong kiss as his hands pull her against him. Her lungs finally let the air go and she feels herself melt into him, the softness of his lips and the freshness of his breath electrifying her system.

But his mind and his heart finally join together, making him ask himself something, _what the hell are you doing?_

But his body isn't having it. His arms finally have her in them and his lips finally have her on them and he's not giving it up. When her hands fall against his forearms as he kisses her strongly, he feels the last shakles of his self-control break. He grips her waist tightly and spins her, taking her lips in his and feeling her bottom lip fall into the grasp of his teeth as he presses her into the counter of the island.

He's so demanding, so unrelenting, and so overwhelming that she can't respond in kind. She usually puts up a fight, needing to be in control. But relinquishing control over to him and having him just do what he pleases is sending shockwaves of a new kind of want that she's never felt, even now as her back is being pressed into the counter, her hand shakingly holding the edge as his hips press into her. He moves his lips against her again, kissing her deeply just as she feels his hand take her jaw, his fingers digging into the base of her skull and pulling her against him as hard as he can, deepening the kiss with a body-numbing, heart pounding passion she wasn't ready for.

As he holds her in a tight, strong, passionate kiss, giving her very little freedom to move, his lips forcing themselves against hers as she reponds as best she can to him, his hand still holding her against him, the ringing of her phone in her back pocket snaps into their ears... and he's off her in a flash, releasing her lips with a huff of air, his hands flying off her as quick as they can and his legs taking a step away from her.

Her body unclenches itself as she lets out a breath, her mind still fuzzy as her phone rings again. Blinking her eyes, she reaches into her back pocket and pulls her phone out, watching out of the corner of her eye as he turns away from her and paces into the living room. "Beckett."

 _"Hey Beckett, it's Ryan. CSU managed to pull through with the victim's hard drive. They're sending up the contents now. We'll have it in an hour. Captain wants us to go through it to see what we can find."_

They usually wouldn't be doing this on a Saturday, but it's an active investigation and they're just starting to coordinate with the Ninth, sharing details as best they can to see if their cases are connected. "Alright, I'll be there." She says, wiping the side of her mouth off with her finger to get rid of the smugged lip gloss.

The call ends and she looks up again, seeing his hand on his hip as he paces away from her.

He feels a strange sense of guilt and shame as he feels her eyes on him. _You took advantage, you idiot!_ He scolds himself.

"So, uh..." She says, feeling nervous and awkward now that the moment has passed. He turns to her again with a soft, yet vacant smirk. "That was Ryan, we uh... we have the contents of the victim's hard drive, they're sending it up so we can start digging through it, looking for leads."

"Yeah, I uh..." He starts, feeling on awkward footing but seeing an opening to get back to where they were before all this, "I heard you were hitting a dead end."

"Leads are starting to dwindle, yeah." She says, shoving her phone back into her back pocket. "We could use a fresh set of eyes, though." She says, motioning towards him by raising her hand. "Precinct in an hour?"

He lets out a hard breath and smiles, "I'll bring coffee."


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: I honestly didn't think this chapter would end up being this long. But with this chapter, we start to get into the meat of the story. The full back story will be (partially) revealed in the next chapter. As with this chapter... well... :)_

* * *

They all sit at the conference table with different stacks of papers in front of them, with Ryan sitting next to Castle and Esposito sitting next to Beckett, with Castle and Beckett sitting diagonally from each other. He's having a hard time focusing, bringing himself up to speed on their investigation, but he gets the gist of the details.

She was barely even responding when he kissed her, of course, she regrets it. It feels so awkward between them now and he feels it's all his fault. If he had just told her that he understands she was standing up for someone she cared about and that accepted that she wanted to get back to their professional partnership and not let his carnal lust for her overwhelm him, it might be fine right now. Because right now, she can barely look him in the eye. He had a thousand different stories written in his head about their first real kiss and taking advantage of her having just broken up with someone who cheated on her wasn't even close to being one of them.

But he just sits and reads over the email chain in front of him, looking for anything to jump out at him.

Apparently, the victim had been in contact for a long while with someone claiming to be a businessman overseas, currently working out of Dubai. The victim was a young, impressionable girl who seemed to have gotten caught up in a fantasy she mistook for reality because the emails are quickly taking a turn towards her being invited to come stay with him while he's in New York on business. The name he was using is fake and in the emails, he charmed his way out of the topic whenever the victim asked what company he worked for, being vague but sounding smart enough in the area to make it sound like he knew what he was talking about.

"Hey, guys, listen to this," Ryan says, making Beckett look over at him with indifference.

The things he did to her still have her blood shaking in her veins, the intensity and unrelentingness of his lips on her's with his controlling hands strongly pulling on her... and she was one second away from her brain catching up to her and going back after him when Ryan called. But now, he wants to do what they've done before and pretend like it never happened. She can tell by the way he's careful not to look her in the eye.

"I'll have my people call a car for you. It will be there tomorrow at two to pick you up and take you to my office." Ryan reads.

"Did he give an address?" Beckett asks, her brain going back to the case.

"No, he was careful." He answers.

"Well, what about the security cameras at the college?" Castle asks. "Did you check them to see if you could get plates?"

"Yeah," Esposito says and tosses his paper back onto the table, leaning back in his chair with his arm over the back. "We tracked her out to the parking lot but she went into a blind spot and disappeared after that."

"So, we're right back to square one." Beckett says and stands up, angrily pacing the floor while she runs a hand through her hair.

And as Castle watches her, it's usually at a time like this when he tries his hardest to think outside the box; when she's frustrated and most likely to take it out on him. "Can I see that email chain of him talking about his job?" He asks Esposito, starting to get an idea he doesn't want to voice until he follows it through. Espo quickly flips haphazardly through the pile and hands it to him, and Castle quickly speed-reads the paper. "What area of medicine did the Ninth say Adams practiced?"

"Uh..." Ryan says, looking over to Espo.

"Immunology, why?" Beckett asks with a creased brow.

"Because some of these terms seem too professional for a guy running a phishing scam to know." Castle says, waving the paper in the air as he looks up at Beckett.

"So, you're thinking that Adams was the guy behind the emails?" Ryan asks.

"Well, the Ninth isn't having any luck with Adams's background. They said most of the evidence was either washed away or contaminated when he was dumped into the bay and they can't get a hit off ballistics. The only thing they can seem to get is a few traces of what they think might be explosive in his office, but they wrote it off as something he probably picked up from the hospital." Beckett explains.

"So, they're at a dead end same as we are." Espo continues.

"They can't get anything off his background?" Castle asks.

"No," Espo answers, "the guy's clean. Patients liked him, financials came up clean, no criminal record, no complaints, apartment was clean and he doesn't own any other properties in the area."

"Well, what about this guy?" Castle asks, pointing his finger to the paper in his hand, making all eyes go to him. "What if he had properties under his online alter ego's name and not his own?"

"That makes sense." Beckett says, turning to face him fully. "Because..." Beckett says, going back to the chair she was sitting in and picking up a paper, "in this email, he mentions a free clinic he knows about here in New York and says he has an office he works out of here."

"So, Adam's runs the emails, using the clinic to test for compatibility." Castle says.

"And his bosses are the muscle." Beckett continues.

"But something must have gone wrong with Vanessa and she ends up dying."

"Then when Adams sees what he's done, he goes to his bosses to get out."

"And they kill him before he can go to the police." Castle finishes. "So, what other properties did he have under his alias?"

Esposito, having heard where they were going, is on his phone. "Just ran the guy's name through the city records and his name comes up on an address in the warehouse district."

Beckett is already looking over at Castle with a small smile, "Let's go."

* * *

Castle and Beckett pull up to the alley with Espo and Ryan behind them. Beckett stops the car and looks over at Castle as he's looking out the windshield at the warehouse they're about to search. They did this last time and now, she doesn't want to pretend like that kiss never happened. And they don't know what they're about to find in this warehouse, now's a good a time as any.

They step out of the car and go around to the trunk, seeing Ryan and Espo do the same behind them as Beckett pulls it open to grab their vests. It isn't until Castle has his over his head and his fighting with the velcro that she has works up enough half-hearted courage to bring it up. "So..." She starts hesitantly, watching as he tries to adjust the vest to his chest. "About this morning."

Castle's throat tightens at the mention of her bringing it up, and he can tell by her tone that she's looking for an apology. "No, Beckett," He says, still trying to get the straps tight enough. "You were in a vulnerable position and I took advantage, I'm sorry."

And when he says that, Beckett's heart starts to sink. _He regrets it?_ She thinks to herself as she finishes with her vest, but still making it look like she's working at it. "I knew what I was doing, Castle." She says casually.

Beckett's words catch him off guard, expecting her to either throw him off or just not respond. But instead, he sees out of the corner of his eye her step forward, coming to stand in front of him and take the troublesome straps of his vest in her hands, slowly and gently adjusting the velcro as her perfume fills his senses. He stands motionless with his heart pounding.

"In fact," She starts, raising a brow with her eyes down on her hands, "I uh..." She says, looking up at him with a small smile and a quirked brow, "kinda liked it."

He feels himself seize up, his heart in three different places in his chest as her eyes look into him, her smile soft and honest. "Really?"

"Just give me a little warning next time, okay?" She says, her hand patting the Velcro strap of his vest.

He nods, chuckling under his breath before her words finally reach his mind. He quickly snaps his head back up to her with his eyes wide. "Next time?"

But she remains unshaken, "You smudged my lip gloss." He feels his heart rise in his chest, his shoulders feeling free of burden as he looks into her sparkling eyes. Their eyes lock again as he feels his longing for her pull him towards her, noticing her hands are still softly laying against his vest. "Be careful in there, okay?"

He just smirks, playing it off as he always does with her with a small nod. Espo and Ryan decide then to come up to them, both with guns drawn.

"Ryan, Espo, you guys go around back and see what you can find. Castle and I will take this side."

"Shouldn't we wait for back up?" Ryan asks.

"We've wasted enough time on this case. I want to get these guys before they have a chance to flee the country." Beckett demands as she draws her own gun. Beckett then nods her head over to the back then looking over at Castle with a stern seriousness, silently asking him to have her back as she always does right before they do this. "You ready?"

Castle just shrugs his shoulders with his arms hanging in the air and follows her as she moves towards the door in front of them. The door squeaks as she flings it open and quickly moves inside, with Castle following close behind her, looking down the short, darkened hallway. It's a few long steps before she flings open the door in front of them at the end of the hallway, coming into a large, open area of the warehouse with road barricades lined up crooked in the middle of the floor. Castle takes a quick survey of the area, seeing an office in the corner and a large bay door on the left side of the warehouse. "It's empty." Beckett says as she moves toward the office.

As Castle passes a beam, his hip hitting against a fire extinguisher as he quickly moves about the warehouse over to her, he feels something tighten his spine. Something in the air telling him it's not as it seems. Something's off. Then in a quick second, his mind remembers an off handed clue she mentioned at the precinct. "The explosives."

He quickly looks up to Kate, seeing her move toward the office and he's running toward her in a flash.

" _Kate!"_

His scream stops her before she feels his weight slam against her, pushing her to the ground, his body on top of her as his hands cover her head. And just a second later, an explosion rocks the warehouse, the heat from the blast washing over her as her ears ring. Castle looks up, seeing the office in the corner of the warehouse in flames as he pushes himself up and off of her. "What the hell was that?" She asks as she starts to push herself off the ground.

But when they hear the bay door of the warehouse start to open, they quickly look over, seeing four sets of boots, and Castle is pulling her up off the ground, doubled over with his arms over her as he's pulling her toward the concrete traffic barricade and taking cover, just as gunfire starts to erupt the warehouse. _This was an ambush,_ Castle thinks to himself as he's sitting next to Kate, who's holding her gun in her lap, bullets hitting against the barricade and automatic gunfire ringing out across the warehouse.

Her heart is pounding and her breath is short and choppy as bullets start to fly passed the barricade. She takes one last breath before quickly turning and only getting one shot off before the edge of the barricade explodes in a cloud of dust, dodging bullets. _What the hell did we get into?_

It's then that Castle's mind flips. They're pinned down and out-gunned. But then his mind tells him one of the first things he was taught, _A well-placed shot could save your life, Ricky._

Steeling himself, he quickly crawls over her and grabs her ankle, taking out her backup piece from its holster. "No, Castle, stay down!" She yells over the gunfire. He's going to get himself killed!

But Castle doesn't hear her as his eyes find the fire extinguisher secured to the beam. Taking aim, he quickly puts a round through the tip of the nozzle, sending a flash of white powder towards the gunmen, making their gunfire stop. A second later, Castle stands up and takes aim at the first one on the right, putting two rounds in his chest. While Beckett sits, her brow knotted as her mind washes away her fear, looking as Castle is standing up next to her. But it only lasts a second before her mind is catching up to what's happening and she's leaning out, putting two rounds through the gunmen on the left while his arms are still flailing about in the cloud of white powder.

When Castle sees the one on the left go down, the one next to him lifts his gun and he quickly reacts, putting another quick double tap in his chest. It's then that he sees the other one take off running toward a door on the other side of the warehouse. And he's unable to stop himself. He quickly runs forward after him through the cloud still hanging in the air, but when his eyes find the man on the ground, he sees something on the man's neck that makes his heart sieze and go into his throat. _It can't be them._

An anger quickly fires into his blood and he's running towards the door he saw the other man escape from. "Castle!" She calls after him, but it doesn't reach him as he's running down the hall.

When the door in front of him flies open, his body reacts and he grabs the man's submachine gun in one hand and sends his foot into the man's knee hearing a loud cracking sound before he screams in pain and falls to the ground. Taking his weapon, he steps over him and runs out into the street, seeing two more black-clad men jump into the side door of a white utility van. He's quickly running towards it before another man steps up to the door, but when he turns to look at Castle, his blood turns to ice.

"Tommy?"

His whole world stops as the man just smirks and waves his hand, jumping into the back of the van just as it's speeding off.

* * *

With the warehouse now abuzz with police, CSU, and paramedics, Beckett stands directing everyone out on the street as she watches out of the corner of her eye her partner, who's slowly pacing back and forth in front of the open bay door as people make bee-lines around him. When she's finished doling out orders, she slowly makes her way towards him, breaking him out of his thoughts with a soft voice. "Hey."

His eyes whip scaredly around to her and the first thing she notices is the frightened dilation in his pupils. "Hey." He says in a small voice.

"That was uh... that was a pretty good shot you made in there." She says and crosses her arms, trying to cheer him up with a light-hearted compliment. All he does is flash her a feigned smile and look down to the ground. "You okay?" She asks in as caring a tone as she can.

He nods, tightening his brow. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

But she can tell that he won't be. "You know, Castle, it's okay to feel like this." His eyes then find her again, still wide and scared. She nods as she continues to try and talk him down, "First time I took a life on the job, he was a trained killer. I still didn't sleep for two days, so... it's okay to feel like this, alright? You did what you had to."

He feels himself let out a relaxing breath, but his chest tightens just a few seconds after that, remembering what he saw. "Right." He says and looks away.

"Well, we have the guy that survived in custody now while the medics treat him. We'll question him at the hospital." _You won't get a thing out of him,_ Rick thinks to himself as he remembers the tattoo he saw. "Are you sure everything's okay, Rick?" She asks and takes a step forward, putting her hand on his arm.

He looks up to her again. He was probably just seeing things, it wasn't him he saw. It can't be. He just smiles and nods, "I'll be fine, just... need to think it over, is all."

She nods, accepting that he's been through a lot today and he's probably just scared. She's seen how he acts when his adrenaline gets to him in situations like that. She's seen some incredible things, but... when he comes down he seems to take a while coming back. And now, she's worried. "Well, I can have a patrolman take you home?" He nods slowly as he grabs the back of his neck. "Just... call me if you need to talk... okay? No matter what time it is, you can always call me, Rick."

He smiles and it feels honest as he hears her words. "It's what partners are for, right?"

* * *

By the time Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito are back at the precinct, just leaving Montgomery's office after giving him details of the raid, Beckett is at her desk when Ryan and Espo are gathering up their things to leave for the night. It's been a long, hectic day and they're all tired, both physically and mentally exhausted. "So, the guy Castle took down at the warehouse ain't talking." Espo says looking down at his phone.

"What do you mean?" Beckett says with her eyes down on her own phone, checking to see if he's called her yet.

"Guys from the Ninth went to question him at the hospital and he won't say a word."

"Well, chances are he didn't know anything anyway. He was probably just muscle in the operation. Those guys tend to be in the dark with their bosses plans." She says, a stab of disappointment hitting her as she checks her text messages, seeing she still hasn't heard from him. She's starting to get worried about him.

"Something wrong?" Espo asks, noticing the furrow in her brow.

"Hmm?" She hums as she looks up to him. "Oh, nothing... I'm just worried about how Castle is handling himself after he had to take someone down like that."

"Well, it's not like he hasn't been through it before." Ryan says out of nowhere.

But then, the room stops. "What?" Beckett asks as her eyes quickly find Ryan, who's eyes are wide and face is pale.

He looks up to her, then looks over to Espo, who's looking at him with a worried, wide eyed look. "What?" He asks back.

It's then her mind starts to look at things from a different angle. And it's written all over their faces. "You're hiding something from me." She accuses and takes a step forward, motioning between the two with her phone. "And it involves Castle, doesn't it?" When she doesn't receive a rebuttal, she pushes. "What is it?"

Espo lets out a breath and looks over to Ryan, his brow softening. "He made us promise not to tell you."

"Tell me... _what?!"_

* * *

 _A/N: I know, I'm evil with the cliff-hangers. ;)  
_


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: So! Here it is! The chapter that most of you have been bugging me for! I've had the backstory written for a while. You'll know why Castle is so desperate to hide his past after this chapter. Let me know! :)_

* * *

With a quivering heart, he stands at the far corner of the bookshelf that separates his office from the living room, reaching for the top shelf with a weak arm and grabs the book. He tugs it from between the wall and the book next to it and brings it down in front of him, holding it in his hands like a delicate flower as he paces towards his desk. It's not until he's leaning back against his desk for support that he has the nerve to crack open the hard cover of Voltaire, seeing a picture he hasn't seen in almost twenty years.

He feels his heart stop when he sees the photo. Add some age, that's the face he saw this afternoon. But...

It just can't be him. It's not possible.

He feels his eyes burn as he takes the photo from the book and lets the book fall from his hand with a clattering thud onto his desk. He feels his heart shatter with guilt when he remembers the last time he saw his face. "I'm sorry, Tommy."

The sound of a knock on the door sends him jumping off the edge of his desk, snapping himself out of his guilt-ridden mind. He takes in a long, deep breath as he tears his eyes away from the photo and puts it back in between the front cover and the first page, wiping his face roughly to rid himself of the physical evidence of his emotions. He moves through the silent darkness of the loft, his fear biting at the back of his mind, wondering who would be knocking this late. But once he opens the door, he feels his blood grow thick, his heart stop, and his breath hitch in his throat.

"Kate..." He says in a weak voice, noticing right away her lowered brow and focused eyes, her lips turned down into a frown as she looks over at him. When she doesn't respond, he feels himself lose her. _She knows,_ he thinks to himself as he lowers his gaze down to the floor, watching out of the corner of his eye to see her slowly pace her way passed him and into the loft without a word.

He slowly slides the door shut and takes a pause, hardening himself against her judgment as much as he can before turning to her with a stern look.

He's never told it to anyone. Not even his own mother.

But now... she's going to be the first to find out.

"Your file..." She says in a voice just above a whisper. "I checked it again..." She says, still looking at him as if she doesn't know who she's looking at, speaking to him as if she's lost. "It didn't say anything about this."

"That's because when I joined under the name 'Richard Castle'... it wasn't my legal name yet." He says with what he knows are brimming eyes.

He looks towards his office and unplants his feet from the floor, moving towards it and rolling his shoulders back, as if to take this all in stride. Once he's at his desk, he flips open the cover of the book and takes the photo with his thumb and forefinger. He takes one last look before turning to find her a few paces into the doorway, still looking at him with a lowered brow. "This is the only proof I have that what I'm about to tell you isn't just another crazy story."

He hands her the photo and still glaring at him, takes it and holds it in front of her. Once she looks down to it, he feels his heart constrict.

She can't feel anything, her emotions are long gone from her, even now as she looks down at this grainy photo he handed her. It's faded, but his features are clearly defined. His hair is shorter and a bit spikier. He's sitting down on the ground in front of a large transport truck, wearing a black t-shirt, cargo pants, and a bullet proof vest with an assault rifle lying in his lap. And next to him is a man around the same age with his arm around Castle's shoulders, his hair is blonde, short, and spiked, his smirk cocky and Cheshire, wearing the same attire as Castle with the same rifle in his lap.

"The man in that photo... his name was Thomas Wayde." His voice starts, shaking as it comes out. "But we called him Tommy."

Her eyes look up to him and she can clearly see them brimming.

He draws in a long breath, "I was a nineteen-year-old high school student on graduation day. I had no ambitions... no plans and no real goals. At that time, being a writer was just... a fever dream. Tommy was there, he'd graduated a few years earlier... and he offered me a job. He said it would mean a few months of intensive training and two years out of the country. And since I had no real family I'd be leaving behind and the money was too good to pass up at that age... I took it."

She lets the photo fall to her side as she silently stands a good distance away from him.

"What it was... was a few wealthy investors wanted to mine precious minerals from a part of Central America. And to save on the money, they decided to give the locals jobs running their operations. But the people down there were being terrorized by a group of people who were dangerous. They'd hold entire villages hostage until they got what they wanted and they didn't care who or what they killed as long as they could make a dollar off it. So... our job was to make sure they were safe."

His heart starts to break from the guilt as he looks away from her, feeling a hot tear leak from his eye.

"But our duties doubled... as making sure the workers stayed in line." He says in a shaky voice. "We were slave drivers, Kate. I hated every minute of it, but... luckily, my mother's acting skills actually paid off and I knew how to pull a punch when I needed to. It didn't happen very often, but when it did... it... was incredibly hard... having to stand by and watch it happen. After a while, the workers seemed to understand and started to just do their jobs and collect their pay."

She still can't feel anything. Her mind is numb... she can't think of anything... can't feel anything.

"Tommy had taken me under his wing, so to speak. He'd... taught me everything he knew. The gang that was terrorizing the locals would have a few skirmishes with us here and there, but after about a year, they seemed to give up and move on. Things seemed to settle down after that and I thought it was smooth sailing until my contract ended. Me and Tommy would pass the time doing... target practice, hand to hand training, survival skills. He was one of the best friends I ever had, Kate."

But when he feels his mind think of what he's about to tell her, he feels his eyes burn again.

"I was nearing the end of my time..." He says with an intense shake in his voice, "when we were escorting a load of cargo from the job site to the coast to be shipped out. It was pretty late in the night and it was just another routine escort. So, most of the other guys seemed pretty relaxed. Tommy was at the truck in front of me... and I blinked." He feels another hot tear leak out onto his cheek, feeling weak and pathetic. "Next thing I know, I'm on the ground and the truck in front of me is upside down in flames and there's muzzle flash coming from both sides of the jungle."

She finally feels her heart beat and her brow arch in concern.

"I crawl to cover and once I'm safe... I see Tommy... lying on the ground underneath the truck, trying to pull his leg out. I could hear him calling for help over the gunfire. And looking back on it, it's easy to tell myself that I was one second away from running after him, but... at the time... most of us had never seen action like that during our time... and we were scared. We had a different set of rules from the real military, so no man left behind wasn't really our official policy. So... when I heard the order to cut our losses and run back to the escort vehicles to get out... I took it."

He feels so small, so guilt-ridden, and so weak, knowing full well that she can see him in silent tears.

"I left Tommy trapped under a pile of flaming metal because I was scared and wanted to save my own life. And... I found myself back here in New York a few days later and I started writing. Once I got the paycheck... I used the money to get In a Hail of Bullets published... and when it became a best seller... I thought I never had to think about that time in my life again. But by the time I'd met Kyra, the guilt had started to get to me and her family noticed. So, when she left me and I met Meredith, Meredith made me feel... a lot better about myself when she fawned all over me the way she did. And when she gave me Alexis... I never thought about what I did again and swore that I would never mention it to anyone."

Kate looks down at the photo again, then back up to him, the light from the street lamps out on the streets shining an orange light onto the tracks of his tears. "Martha? She doesn't know?"

"She thinks I spent two years traveling abroad like she told me to."

"And... and Esposito and Ryan?"

"I only told Espo because it was the only way to get him to keep his damn mouth shut after he called me out for making that shot when you were kidnapped a few days ago." He says, annoyance making his jaw tense and teeth grind as he shakes his head. "I only told Esposito _what_ I was. But... you're the only person that knows about Tommy. I thought that..." He says, emotions clogging his throat again, "I thought that I'd put it behind me after all these years, but... ever since Esposito found out, he's been on my case about it non-stop. Proud soldiers like him have a real pet-peeve with private mercenaries which is why he's been so indifferent towards me lately. But... I guess it was bound to come out eventually. Even Deep Throat told people what he did right before he died."

She shakes her head, her heart tugging as he admits that it's haunted him so badly, and he's never told it to anyone except her.

"I was perfectly content playing the naive writer slash careless millionaire playboy. But... when I met you, I found myself being put into situations that forced me to choose between keeping you safe and keeping my secret. And Kate..." She feels her heart tug again when he says her first name with a tremble in his voice, "if I didn't care about you so much, the decision might be a little harder. But the truth is... I'd choose keeping you safe in a heartbeat."

She takes one last step toward him, her eyes down on his lips as she comes to stand in front of him, just inches away.

"But Kate, if this changes the way you..." His words stop when she lifts a shaky hand, putting her fingers over his lips as her eyes narrow and looks down to her fingers.

After a moment, her eyes flick up to look at him and her hand moves from his lips to frame his face. Her other hand drops the photo to the ground and takes his forearm, moving his hand around her waist as she leans forward, pressing her front up against his, then moving the hand she used to tell him to hold her up his arm until it's around his shoulder, still searching his eyes deeply.

"I want this too much to let that change how I see you."

"But, Kate, in the morning, you'll-"

"I'll decide how I feel about it then, Castle." She says, her arms slowly weaving themselves around his neck. "Because right now, I wanna be with you before I lose you to this." Her heart wants to feel close to him again, she wants to pull the man she fell in love with back to her, whatever it takes. "I wanna feel close to you, Rick."

He lets out a hard breath, his shoulders breaking free of the weight they feel burdened with, but still quivering under her hands. He lets his eyes drift shut and leans down, resting his forehead down against hers, finding a deep solace in her presence, in her want to be with him despite his past.

She lifts her head off his, leaning back and looking into his eyes again. Their eyes lock as she takes a step backward and folds her hands into his, walking him through the open door to his bedroom.


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: So SO sorry for the slow update. All I can say is the Amish are stupid. I've been without power for three days thanks to this stupid storm and I've wanted to tear my hair out. Simpler life my ass. Anyway, glad to be back. Let me know what you think of this chapter. Thanks always for all the ups and support. :)_

* * *

"Ricky!"

He draws in a short breath of air, breathing in the hot, humid stench of burning rubber and gunpowder. He cautiously pokes his head out as the gunfire buzzes his head and pangs his ears. When he sees him, pulling on his leg, his legs tell him to move, but he's paralyzed by the chaos. " _Castle, you were ordered to clear out."_

"Ricky! _Ah!"_

When a bullet pings off the side of the truck next to his head, he calls back over his radio. "Tommy's still trapped!"

" _Clear out, Castle. That's an order. We've lost too much."_

"Ricky!" Tommy's voice strains.

When another rocket whizzes over his head and explodes the dust-ridden clearing apart, his fear and panic grip him, taking a strangle hold in a matter of seconds as he feels the heat of the explosion wash over his sweat-crusted face. He jumps to his feet and takes off running down the road, feeling the ground behind him erupt in a hail of bullets.

" _Ricky!"_

* * *

He gasps as he whips himself upright.

He can still feel the humidity of the weather and the stench of the burning rubber and gunpowder choke his lungs. His mind is whirling as his eyes skirt around the dark of the room that takes him a tense second to recognize. Still panting, once his consciousness comes back to him, he closes his eyes and lets out a long breath, relaxing as much as he can, his heart still pounding against his sweat-slicked chest.

It was just a dream.

No, a nightmare.

He opens his eyes again, still feeling the panic and chaos cloud his thinking as he runs a hand through his damp hair. He can't remember what happened the night before; what time he went to bed, what he had for dinner, if Alexis went to bed okay, if his mother is even home, or even what day it is. He doesn't even realize he's shirtless until a cool breeze wafts through the loft and kisses his skin, making him shiver. And when he hears a soft creak in the bed next to him, he looks down in fear that he somehow wound up back in his playboy, one-night-stand, nihilistic lifestyle of old.

But when he sees her angelic face pressed into the pillow, laying on her stomach with the tossed-about sheets covering everything but her shoulders, her hair fanning out across her skin, he feels it all come back to him.

His mind clears as the memories come back to him in a tidal wave of overdriven senses. He lets himself relax completely as he gently lays back down to the bed, so's not to disturb her with his movement. Once his head is back down against the pillow, he tenses as he feels her leg brush against his. He stays paralyzed when she scoots herself closer to him, her head landing on his shoulder with her arm draping lazily across his stomach. Once he feels her dead asleep on top of him, he moves his arm around her and lays it down across her back, softly tugging her into him.

But now, he's awake. Wide awake.

And she's still fast asleep, blowing cool air down the expanse of his stomach in slow intervals.

Their night was incredible. Wanting, demanding, pushing, needy, passionate, slow and comforting then frenzied and biting in the blink of an eye. Soothing then clawing, slow then rushing. In all, completely overwhelming to every sense he has. He lost track of how many times exactly they went before their bodies collapsed out of exhaustion. They seemed to just meld together, one after another in a slow work up back to the edge they never bothered to figure out exactly the place of. He was so eager to explore her that he forgot to catalog what it was he found.

There were no words, just names said in strained voices passed passionate kisses.

His heart was aching, vulnerable, and silently crying for comfort though. And it seemed like she could tell because everytime he seemed to pull back, she would wrap her limbs around him tightly, almost in a sign of telling him that she's not going anywhere.

And when she moves her head against his chest, burying herself deeper into his side, he lets his eyes drift shut again.

* * *

It's early morning by the time Kate wakes up.

She can tell by the pale blue light shining in through the windows. She just lays still, her head resting down against his chest with her fingers drawing invisible patterns in his chest hair, listening to the soft thud of his heartbeat under her ear.

She wants the man she fell in love with back. That loveable man-child who's carefree and playful step brings light back to the dark. She imagined he must have had some sort of painful past, being raised by a single mother, sent off to boarding school, then having two failed marriages. But this...

If it wasn't for the tears she saw flowing from his eyes, she might be taking this differently. But he looked so broken and wracked with guilt and grief that she almost couldn't bear it. The shake in his voice as he fought a losing battle to keep his voice steady, plugging up leaky holes in the dam blocking off his emotions by the second... she's never seen him like that before.

There were times when he's amazed her by his performance in action by her side. And she's always just written it off as 'a lucky shot', or 'just nerves'. And yesterday was no exception. When he made that nearly impossible shot at that fire extinguisher, narrowly saving her life yet again, she just accepted his half-hearted smile and moved on. And when she tried to comfort him through his first time, or what she thought was his first time, taking a life on the job... she just accepted it.

He's always pushed her for more answers, always asking more questions, prying more out of her, much to her chagrin. And she's always so busy losing the fight in fending him off that she... maybe never bothered to push back?

But she knows who it is she fell for, who it is she fell madly in love with. And she can sense his past coming back to haunt him, change him back into a person she can clearly tell he doesn't like being. She wants _her_ Castle back. She needs to pull him out of this tailspin. And last night was the first, desperate, grabbing step in doing so.

And it was amazing.

It was always hard for her to admit that their obvious chemistry would make for a great sex life, that they'd be great together in a lot more ways than just crime-fighting. And she always knew that if one kiss made her body crawl the way it did that cold, damp night just a few months ago, she could only imagine what a whole night like last night would feel like. She's never been that needy and wanting before. She's never let anyone take that much control of her before. She's never _had_ to have someone else's lips on hers that much before.

But Castle...

She's always crossed that line to try and salvage a relationship, never to forge one. To prove to herself that she felt something, never because she felt something, let alone that that something was being in love.

And she _is_ in love with him. She can feel it in her heart. The way it's tugging and yanking her to go to him, to be with him and be there for him, seek comfort and solace in him... even before she decided to take this leap.

"Hey."

His soft voice snaps her out of her thoughts and she lifts her head off his warm chest. She smiles as she looks up at him, "Morning."

She slides herself up so she's laying on her side next to him, his head turned over toward her. After a moment of searching each other's eyes, he reaches over and softly brushes his knuckles down her warm cheek, making her fight off a smile as she reaches up and grabs his hand. "You know, uh..." He starts in a soft voice, "you were right."

She raises a brow, silently asking him what he means.

"I had no idea."

Her smile splits her face in two as her stomach tightens in laughter, being thrown back to their first case together. "Well, not to stroke your ego or anything, but um... neither did I."

His playful, boyish smile lights up his tired features. And after a moment, his smile begins to fade. "Kate, if you think we rushed into this, then-"

She's quick to stop him from going down that path. "No, Castle, it's..." She lets her words fall, stopping him by gently rubbing his chest.

He stays silent, feeling vulnerable as he waits for her to continue.

She sighs and looks up to him again. "I know you think that I just got out of a relationship and that I'm just looking for someone to... fill the void." She explains.

And she's right. "Well, Kate, you and Josh were together for a long time. And he betrayed your trust when he cheated on you."

She breathes a humorless chuckle as she shakes her head against the pillow. "Castle..." She starts, her hand reaching up and brushing down his jaw. "When Ryan and Esposito showed me those pictures of him kissing that woman, you wanna know what I felt?"

All he can do is look over to her with an arched brow and wondering, pained expression.

"Nothing." She says with a soft easiness.

His brow pinches as his expression shifts into taken aback. "What?"

"If anything, I felt relieved that I finally had a real reason to end it."

"You know, that's kind of hard to accept thinking of the way you tore my head off a few days ago." He says in a slightly shifting tone.

And she know's she's guilty where that is. "No, Castle, you're right." She reassures him with a smile and a lift of her hand. "In fact, that's probably why I fought you so much on it."

She can see the pain flit across the twinkle in his eye, but it's brief before he corrects himself. He's trudging on ahead anyway, though. "Kate... you've no idea how much hearing you say that I didn't have a place in your life hurt."

"I didn't say that, Rick." She says painfully, leaning over to him with her hand on his neck. She remembers all too well what she said, and that wasn't it.

"Well, that's what it sounded like to me, so..." He says with a sad, emotionally armored shrug of his shoulders against the bed sheets.

She closes her eyes and scoots herself closer to him. "Castle..." She says, pressing against his cheek when he looks away from her, "as hard as it might have been to admit at the time... that _is_ your place in my life. Because, like I said... you were _right."_

He looks over to her with a knot in his brow. "What do you mean? About what?"

She feels herself smile sadly and look down to the small space between them, thinking back to just a few days ago. "You remember a few days ago when we were at the hospital?"

His eyes look around her, "Yeah, why?"

"I was sitting in the ER with Josh..."

Castle rolls his eyes in obvious disgust.

And after a chuckle, she presses on. "And you came in and I asked Josh if I would see him that night. He said that he was busy and couldn't make it. So I asked if you wanted to go to dinner with me. And when _you_ shot me down... I felt more let down and disappointed than when Josh said that he couldn't make it."

His expression shifts into a soft smile, "Really?"

"Mmhmm." She hums with a slow nod of her head.

He breathes out another hard sigh and looks up at the ceiling. After a moment, he looks back over at her, "You know why I shot you down, though, right?"

She knits her brow, curious as to why he's bringing it up. "Yeah, you... you said you had to write. Why?"

He lets out an inward groan in frustration and grits his teeth. "Well, I just watched you get passed over by your boyfriend. And when you asked me, it felt like..." He lets his words fall as he shakes his head and looks back up at the ceiling.

"Like what?" She urges him.

And after a small sigh and a soft look her way, "Like you were settling for me."

" _Settling?"_

He tries to hid his self-pity behind a small sigh and a shake of his head.

"Castle, Josh and I were... _fooling_ ourselves when we decided to give our relationship a real shot when he canceled his trip. We both knew that. He even said so when we broke up. And you were right when you said that you had to... in your words, 'pick up his slack'."

"Well, still..." He says, still being dragged down by his self-pity, despite the fact that he has the woman he loves lying next to him, with her leg tangled together with his. "It was just hard knowing that you saw something in him that you didn't see in me."

"No, Castle, it's not what I didn't see. It's what I did." She says clearly.

But he looks over to her confused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Castle, I always knew that if we ever... crossed this line, that it would be..." She says, at a loss for an honest way to put it that doesn't taste wrong on her tongue.

"Serious?" He says for her.

And when she hears it, it sounds right. She looks over at him again and nods. "Yeah... serious." She says quietly.

"So..." He starts nervously. "You... really want to give this, like... a _real_ shot?"

She smiles warmly and lays her hand flat down on his chest. "Yeah."

"Even..." He starts again, his voice coming out strained and scared, "after... what you know about me now?"

And when he says that, she's dragged back down to what she's running from. But she can't let that stop her. "We can work through it, Castle."

He pushes out another hard breath and nods his head against the pillow. "Well... then I guess you wouldn't mind if I ask you something then."

When his eyes find hers again, she pushes a smile and nods. "Anything."

He pushes himself up on his elbow and looks down at her with a soft smirk. "Kate Beckett?" He asks with a lift of his brow, his voice casual and easy.

She feels herself tense at his tone, but smile nonetheless. "Yeah?" She asks on a breathy chuckle.

"Will you go out on a date with me?"


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: This is by far the longest chapter I've ever written! I hope it's not too long and do hope you enjoy reading it! I've had this mapped out for a while now, and I'm glad I could work this into this story. Let me know! :)_

* * *

Taking another cool, deep breath, he confidently strides out into the living room, where his mother and Alexis are buzzing about the kitchen. He's busy fiddling with his neck-tie as his mother looks over at him with a raised brow at his appearance. "Well, well, well..." She says as she turns towards him.

"You look nice, Dad." Alexis says when she looks over her shoulder, moving out of the kitchen with a smile and over to him.

"Thank you, Pumpkin." He tells her thankfully as she steps up to him and grabs the ends of his fitful tie.

He stands still as he tilts his head back and stiffens himself so she can easily help him, looking into the kitchen as his mother floats about behind Alexis. "I take it you're excited." She says knowingly.

Just as Alexis finishes with his necktie, he rolls his neck and snaps on his lapels. "Tonight is the night, Mother." He says with a smirk, going into the kitchen to pour a glass of water to ease his dry throat. "Tonight is the night that I sweep the woman of my dreams... right off her feet." He says and tosses the glass out in front of him before taking a long swig.

"You have everything prepared then?" She asks, coming to stand on the other side of the island.

He puts the glass down onto the counter, catching his breath after downing the glass of water, which didn't help his nerves. "Yep." He says, buttoning his sport-coat. "Made a reservation at that new restaurant downtown. Had to drop my name to get it, but I got it. I assume you have the tickets?"

Martha raises her hands in the air in typical theatrical fashion and moves around the couch to the coffee table. "Yes, Darling, here you go." She says and hands him the tickets to the play that's been booked up for months now. "Best seats in the house, I assure you."

"Thank you." He says honestly and puts the tickets in the inside pocket of his coat. As he looks down at one of his newer, nicer watches, he sees he has just enough time to swing by a flower stand and pick her up some before he's due to pick her up. "Alright, I have to go." He says, a squeeze in his nervous heart and a tight clench in his throat as he pats himself down one last time, checking off his mental checklist, quickly moving toward the door. "Wish me luck."

With his daughter and mother both smiling at him and waving, he moves out of the door and down to the street, managing to quickly flag down a taxi after a quick walk down to the end of the block. He gives the cabby the address to Beckett's apartment building and tries to focus his addled mind.

It's the Friday after their night together. It's been a week and they've been... taking it slow. Most of it is just building up anticipation for tonight. She's been trying to pry details out of him all week, but he's been determined to keep it all a secret aside from telling her that it's going to be epic. And hopefully, it will be the _last_ first date he ever has to go on. It's been a slow week... a very slow week. They've shared a hidden goodbye kiss at the end of each day, keeping their relationship private from their peers for now, until they're on some sort of level footing with everything.

He's convinced himself that the face he saw last week wasn't Tommy. His past has been haunting him, especially his friend, and it was just him seeing things. He's read up on things like that, people's minds playing tricks on them in times of crisis, making them see things that aren't there. And the tattoos of the thugs they took down could have come from anywhere. A rose is a pretty common tattoo to get, after all. And even if it was them, what would they be doing all the way up here in New York anyway?

His mind comes out of his thoughts when he looks down the street and sees the flower stand he was hoping they'd pass. "Right here is fine."

The cab stops and he quickly pays the toll, stepping out into the bustle of people buzzing around him. He quickly jumps around them and stands in front of the large selection of bouquets of flowers, picking something yellow. She always loved yellow. He picks one out of the corner and hands them to the clerk, hearing him say the price as he takes out his wallet, handing him the money.

"Are you Richard Castle?" An excited voice practically squeals next to him.

He looks over with a raised brow and smiles at the woman standing in front of him, holding a copy of _Naked Heat_ in her hand. "Yes, I am." He says, his mind reaching for the pen in his coat pocket.

"Oh, I _love_ your books!" She swoons with her hand on her chest. "C-could you..." She says nervously and hands him her book. He smiles warmly and gives her a trademark smirk, clicking his pen open.

He smiles warmly and gives her a trademark smirk, clicking his pen open. He asks for her name, and after signing it, he hands the book back to her and she quickly waves, thanking him and moving back into the bustle of people on the street. The clerk seems uninterested as he hands Castle his flowers. He smiles in thanks and moves down the street, deciding to walk the next few blocks to her apartment. Maybe the cool air of the night will relax him a bit.

It doesn't.

Even as he takes the elevator up to her floor and steps off. On wobbly legs, he comes to stand in front of her door, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders back before raising his hand and knocking, moving the flowers behind his back. After a long, tense moment of waiting all too anxiously, the door opens and he feels his breath stolen from his lungs.

In a deep blue dress that hugs against her shapely hips, the hem coming down to just above her knees, the seam coming down in a wide 'v', showing just the right amount of cleavage with a thin shawl draped over her shoulders, her hair tied back in a simple yet stylish bun. She looks immaculate.

And in a dark blazer with a gray button-down and a black tie, his hair more combed and styled and normal, his jaw slack as he looks over at her, his stunned but still ever so handsome expression makes her smile. "Hey Castle."

He lets out his first huff of air, feeling a smile prick at the edges of his lips as he lets his eyes rack over her again. He looks back up at her again, taking a large, slow step through her door with his eyes down on her lips. She doesn't seem to fight him as he slowly bends down, capturing her soft lips in a slow, loving, lingering kiss. He hears her let out a small moan and feels her melt into him as he kisses her for a long few seconds. He lets her go with a soft pluck.

"You look amazing." He says when he leans back.

Her eyes flutter open and she bites her bottom lip, looking down to his chest. "You're not so bad yourself, Castle."

He silently takes her compliment and moves the flowers out from behind his back. "Got these for you."

When she sees the large bouquet of Primrose and Foxglove, her smile splits her face in two. Which is exactly what he was hoping for when he picked these up. She looks up at him again with a sparkle in her eyes as she takes the flowers he's offering her. "They're beautiful, Castle."

He feels a mix of hope and pride fill him as she smiles at him again and turns back into her apartment, quickly moving into the kitchen to find a vase, leaving him to slowly meander into her apartment, closing the door behind him, checking his watch and seeing he's right on time. Everything is going just as he'd hoped. He can hear the water turn on in the kitchen right as her voice is calling over to him.

"So, will you finally tell me where it is we're going tonight?"

"And ruin the surprise?" He calls back.

"Surprise? Castle, I'm a cop." She says as she turns off the water. "I deal with enough surprises on the job. Will you just tell me?"

He smiles to himself as he tucks his hands into his pockets, pacing his way slowly into the kitchen, where she's arranging the flowers in the vase. "You know that new place that just opened up downtown?"

Her heart stops but then soars when her mind snaps things into place. "Yeah, that place is supposed to be amazing. You..." She says as her expectations are blown apart. "You _actually_ got reservations?"

"Well, I _am_ a best-selling novelist." He says with a shrug, feigning modesty. She smiles and laughs silently despite herself. "And... my mother has very thoughtfully procured two tickets to that play you've been wanting to see." He says, pulling the tickets from his inside coat pocket.

And she looks over at him, completely taken aback back his gestures, his thoughtfulness, his impressiveness... and his connections. He's pulled off the impossible tonight. That restaurant is supposed to be one of the most high-class places in Manhattan and that play has been sold out for months... and she just mentioned it in passing a couple of weeks ago when they got into a conversation about one of Martha's antics one afternoon. But he remembered. She smiles, breathing a laugh of amazement.

She just fell for him all over again.

"Castle, that's so _sweet._ " She as she takes the tickets from his hand, seeing the seats are in the fourth row, right in the middle.

He fights a prideful smile as he takes in the whimsical sparkle in her eye. If he can get that look out of her all night, it will all fall into place. She looks up to him with the corners of her mouth tucked in, fighting a smile as she looks up at him. "We better get going if we're going to make it on time."

She nods and looks down, seeing he has his arm lifted, offering it to him. She looks up at him again, looking deep into his eyes as they dance over her and takes his arm and lets him lead her out the door.

* * *

They step out of the cab after bickering over her paying for at least this, feeling a slight windchill cut through the air. Grabbing her small clutch purse, she instinctively steps into his side against the cold wind, slightly gritting her teeth. She didn't anticipate it being this chilly tonight. But he seems willing and very eager to warm her when he quickly snakes his arm around the small of her back, quickly lifting his hand up toward the door to the restaurant.

They step through the large, decorative doorway, seeing the seating filled, upper-class men and women in clean and pressed suits and gowns. "Name?" The hostess asks.

Castle smirks as he steps up to the podium. "Richard Castle."

Beckett looks down to the floor sheepishly, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. She didn't really prepare herself for what being out on a date with Castle would do to her, or what it would mean. He's not exactly a stranger to page six and ever since they've worked together, neither is she. She abhors the idea that their relationship can't be explored in complete privacy, let alone letting it be blasted out into the ether for all to see and gossip about.

But she shoves it aside for now and tightens her arm around his.

And as Castle watches the hostess closely, that nervous clench in his throat returns. Her eyes go up to him in a downcast expression. "Yes, Mr. Castle, uh..." She starts in a tight voice.

Castle breathes out a nervous chuckle and smirks. "What's the problem?"

"We uh... accidentally double-booked your table for the night. Some of our staff are still being trained."

Thinking it can easily be remedied, he shrugs his shoulders. "Well, who's the other party? I'll buy them another night."

"Uh..." The hostess says and points over her shoulder a table in the center of the room. And when Castle sees who it is, his heart drops. "It's the Governor, sir."

His teeth grind as he looks over to the man occupying what should be his seat. And when Beckett sees his reaction, she gets an idea. "Well, you're friends with the mayor. Do you know the governor?"

"Yeah... I do." He says in a low, nervous voice.

She turns to face him with a dour face. "What happened, Castle?"

"It was right after that dirty bomb scare." He says quietly, leaning in close to her, watching the governor closely and waiting to run out the door when he's noticed. "He invited me up to his penthouse."

"Well, what the hell did you do?" She asks in a hiss.

"I called his bluff." He tells her, looking down to her straightened brow and hard eyes. This was not part of the plan. She narrows her eyes and shakes her head. "He tried to get me with a pair of fours. I ended up taking his watch."

"What the hell were you thinking, Castle. It's the _governor!"_

"I had a full house, Kate! Queens over aces, I had to teach him a lesson!" He argues.

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, crossing her arms and shaking her head. "Well," She says, rubbing her chin thoughtfully, "maybe you could... go talk to him? Break the ice."

"Can't do that."

She deadpans. " _Why?!"_ She spits in a harsh whisper.

"Because I'm wearing his watch."

Her eyes look down to the high-end watch on his wrist and she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Oh, god..."

"Uh, Mr. Castle?" The hostess calls over to them. He looks up with a raised brow, weaving his arm back around her's. "We _do_ have a last minute cancellation if you want-"

"We'll take it." Kate cuts her off.

* * *

"So..." Castle says, waiting for their orders to arrive, looking at the small, almost crowded table they were seated at in the back corner right next to the hall to the bathrooms, "this is uh..."

"Not what you had in mind?" She asks with a lift in her voice. She knows when he's trying to find the silver lining for her. She can tell this is not how he wanted things to play out. It's written all over his nervous expression.

He lets out a hard sigh, closing his eyes. "Not exactly, no."

"Well," She starts, shrugging her shoulders, "look at it this way, Castle. We _did_ manage to get a table at an exclusive restaurant in Manhatten on a Friday night. I'd say that makes for a miracle in itself."

He smiles despite himself and nods, "Yeah, I guess. And..." He says, sitting back up, "we do still have those tickets."

She feels a small twinge of excitement crawl up her spine when he mentions that, just as she looks over to her side and sees a try being brought their way. They both sit up and let their hands fall down to their laps as their dishes are set down in front of them. It's not exactly what they're used to when they go out to eat, but it looks good, anyway.

She sees Castle smile up at the waiter, "It looks great, thanks." He says.

The waiter leaves and Kate picks up her knife and fork, cutting into her small slice of meat. But when she pulls it apart, she feels her stomach turn to a rock, her excited nerves flooding with annoyance. She lets out another scoff and closes her eyes, dropping her silverware down to the plate and throws herself back in her chair.

And when Castle sees her reaction, he feels their night take yet another step in the completely wrong direction. "Something wrong?"

She tosses her hand toward her plate. "My meat's undercooked."

"Want me to get the waiter? We can have it sent back." He says and looks over his shoulder in search of the waiter.

But she's quick to stop him. " _No,_ no." She says, quickly leaning forward and reaching over the table.

"What is it?"

" _Trust_ me, Castle. I worked as a waitress all through high school to pay for my Softail. I know _exactly_ what happens when someone sends their food back to the cook and take my word for it... it's much better this way."

"Well... uh..." He says, trying desperately to salvage their dinner, "you want some of mine?" He asks her generously, pointing at his plate with his fork.

She doesn't feel right taking from his plate, seeing as he has all of four or five bites of food. But she can tell that he'd be more let down if she refused. And it wouldn't be the first time she's stolen food from him while they were at dinner, anyway. She reaches and jabs her fork into one of his scallops, regretfully popping it into her mouth. It's tastes really good but... she's feeling the magic of the night fade quickly.

They eat off his plate slowly, taking their time and filling the void with soft, idle chitchat about how they can pick on Esposito and Lanie about their relationship if they decide to do the same with theirs. And when the waiter comes back and takes their plates, Kate dodges his question about her full plate by saying she's just feeling a bit sick... which isn't exactly too far off when she looks back down to her plate again.

The waiter sets the bill propped open on the table, and being glad that it's over, Castle leans off to his side to reach for his wallet. But when his hand goes into his pocket... his heart drops.

And when she sees his eyes pop wide, she feels her nerves clench her again. "Don't tell me..."

"The flower stand..." He says, his eyes staring off into space as he thinks back to just an hour ago when he picked up those flowers for her, being stopped by a fan to sign an autograph. He doesn't remember specifically leaving his wallet there, but he doesn't remember picking it back up either. "I left my wallet at the flower stand."

"How the hell could you do that?" She asks in another harsh whisper.

"Someone recognized me!" He answers in a high-pitched voice. "They stopped me as I was paying and asked me to sign their book. It doesn't happen very often, I have to savor it when it happens."

She lets out another hard breath, dropping her head into her hands, leaning against the table. They should have just stayed at her apartment. "How are we supposed to get out of here now?" She asks herself.

"Well, don't you have your badge on you?"

She looks back up at him with a straight brow. "What do you want me to do, Rick? Tell them to bill the NYPD?"

"After all the money I've donated? I'd probably be paying for it anyway."

"Do you have any _idea_ how much trouble I'd get into for that?"

"You can blame me!"

"Yeah, and get fired at the same time!" They argue quietly among themselves.

Castle groans inwardly and tosses himself back in his chair. This is so not the night he had planned. He'd be lucky if she even gave him a peck on the cheek worthy of a distant relative at the end of tonight, especially after this. "Castle."

Her voice sounds warning and he looks up, seeing her look off to the side, seeing someone move through the tables straight in their direction. His fear, panic, and nervousness grip him, making a cold sweat break out over his skin, making his clothes feel binding, his tie feeling too tight around his neck all of the sudden.

"Be charming, Castle. Because I think I see a way out of this."

* * *

Out on the street, he feels beaten down by the events of tonight.

Even now as Kate walks slowly by his side, down the street against the soft, cold breeze wafting through the air. "I loved that watch."

She looks over and feels herself pulled toward him. He's completely crestfallen and hopeless, a dull yet painfully obvious sadness in his eyes. He had to charm his way into letting the governor take care of their bill, at the expense of Castle returning his watch that he'd won off him. Luckily, he managed to get on equal footing when he introduced her, as being _the_ detective Kate Beckett. But she still felt bad for him, having to embarrassingly admit that he'd left his wallet at a flower stand.

When another cold breeze cuts against her skin, making her shiver as a wave of goosebumps erupts on her arms, he takes immediate notice and even more immediate action. He quickly steps off to the side and tugs his sport-coat off his shoulders and then steps up behind her, gently draping it over her shoulders.

She feels her heart soar inside her chest, love exploding through her as she tugs on the lapels to burrow into the warmth of his coat, falling for him for such a simple and gentlemanly act of kindness. He smiles warmly to her at as he shoves his hands into his pockets again. She smiles back and steps back into his side, weaving her arm around his again and falling into step with him as they make their way on foot toward the theater.

But...

"Are you still feeling up for the play?" She asks.

He looks over to her again, a soft arch in his brow. "I know how much you want to see it."

"Yeah, well..." She trails off with a shrug, looking down to the ground passing under their feet.

"I understand." He says, feeling another stab of heartbreak at the disaster that has been this night. "You don't want anything else to go wrong."

"No!" She soothes quickly, putting her hand against his bicep. "No, it's not that. It's just... you know, you kinda have to be in the mood for things like that, and that little fiasco at dinner... kinda put a damper on things."

That didn't really help pull him out of his letdown. The point is that a damper was put on things in the first place. He nods, accepting that she just wants to be taken home. "Right..." He sighs.

"Hey..." She says softly, tugging on his arm as they walk. He looks over to her with a sad arch in his brow, "I'm having a good time, Castle. I mean... _your_ dinner was pretty good." She says on a shrug. "We even got out of paying."

He feels himself smile and let out a soft chuckle. He looks up toward the street, but when his eyes see two things coming together, his body reacts on instinct. Seeing the taxi quickly moving towards the large puddle next to them, he quickly wraps his arms around her and pulls her into the protective cove of his body. But he feels a cold, wet splash of dirty water slap against his back a second later, soaking his shirt and making his skin crawl.

She takes a step back with her hands on his chest and looks up at him, seeing the tips of his hair wet, his shirt soaked and clinging to his skin as he angrily deadpans off into space in front of her.

* * *

She opens her door and lets him in first. He drags his feet inside her apartment, his head hanging low as she closes the door. "Here, take your shirt off. You're gonna get sick if you keep that thing on." She says and moves passed him into her bedroom. "I'll try and find you something to wear."

He breathes out a heavy breath as he slowly, uninterestingly, and very under-motivatingly begins to losen his tie and unbutton his shirt. "Listen," He calls after her, standing in her living room as he takes off his shirt, with just a tight fitting white tank-top underneath, "I'm so sorry about tonight."

He's just folding up his shirt when she comes back out, her eyes quickly catching a greedy sight of his mucles flex as they move about. "It's not your fault, Rick." She swallows dryly, coming to stand in front of him with a sweater that she hopes... or doesn't hope will fit him. "It might not have gone as planned, but..."

"No, it was a complete disaster." He stops her with a raised hand, still looking completely torn down. "I just..." He starts desperately but trails off and lets his words fall.

"What?" She pushes him, her hand landing on his stomach.

He lets out another small breath and looks up at her again. "Tonight was supposed to be perfect, Kate. It was... it was supposed to be the night that I..." he says, feeling too exposed and vulnerable saying what he has on his mind, but her gaze pulls it out of him, "that I sweep you off your feet."

Her breath hitches in her throat and she smiles. "Sweep me off my feet?" She asks, still falling for how sweet he's being.

His sadness is still too obvious and painful in his eyes. "For once, I just wanted everything to fall into place with us. Now, our first _real_ date ends up being a train wreck."

"Well, I wouldn't call it a _train wreck,_ Rick." She says with a casual shrug of her shoulders. His eyes look up to her again sadly, "No, it was... memorable. Granted... it could have gone smoother, but... I still had a great time."

His eyes narrow, "How?"

She looks over to him, her eyes softening as her palm flattens against his stomach. "Because I was with you." That brings a soft, loving smile to lift his featuers, a twinkle quickly being brought back to his eyes. "And..." She says knowingly, taking another step toward him. "I never said that it's too late to... sweep me off my feet." She says with a waggle of her brow.

"Even after all this?"

She shrugs her shoulders and purses her lips. "Well, you _did_ buy me flowers, Rick."

"Good point."

Without hesitation or reserve, he quickly scoops her up in his arms, seeing that same sparkle in her eye he was wishing for.


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: I introduce the antagonist in this chapter. You can probably take a guess as to who it is. But if not, you'll probably like where I'm taking this story. Let me know if you do... or don't. Thanks for all the ups and support! :)_

* * *

Kate pours two cups of coffee on her counter, sliding one of them over to Lanie as she adds her creamer and sugar.

"You should have seen him, Lanie. He looked so _sad!"_

Lanie coos as she takes the small bowl Kate handed her with the sugar in it. "Aw..."

Kate takes the first sip of the hot liquid and moves around her island to sit down in one of the stools. "He looked like someone just stole his wagon or something. It would have been adorable if it wasn't so heartbreaking."

Lanie comes around and sits down next to her. "Was it really that bad?"

"Oh, Lanie, it was _terrible."_ She answers with a shake of her head. "If it was anyone else, it would have been one of the worst first dates I've ever been on. And I've been on some pretty bad first dates."

"Can't be as bad as me and Javi's first date." Lanie snides, rolling her eyes with her cup in front of her, about to take a sip. "Tried to be cute by taking us to a drive-thru, but ran out of gas at the window. Said he 'had fifteen more miles'." Lanie scorns, using air quotes.

Kate laughs and shakes her head. "No, Lanie, it was... it was really sweet. Everything he _tried_ to do. I mean, if everything had worked out, it would have been the best date I've ever been on. But it was just so _bad._ " She says humorously. "And he looked so sad about it!"

Lanie smiles sadly, putting a hand over her chest. "Well, at least you got to finally meet the governor." She says with a coy, almost proud smile, pressing her cup towards her.

"Oh yeah, because _that_ went over so smoothy." She says sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Lanie belts out a chuckle as Kate takes another sip of her coffee. "I take it he's not one of Castle's fans."

"He can't stand him." Kate waves a hand, right after a sip of her coffee. "It was all Castle could do to not dine and dash just to get away from him. He came up to the table all cocky and when Castle stood up to shake his hand, he saw he was wearing his watch." She tells her with an evil grin. "Oh man, you can't imagine the look on the governor's face. He took it so _personally."_

"How'd you get out of the bill?"

"Castle had to admit that he left his wallet at a flower stand. The governor said 'that's too bad', then said... 'maybe you'll have better luck next time'." Kate says knowingly, her brow raised.

"What did he mean by that?"

"That's what Castle told him when he took his watch."

They both belt out laughing, the embarrassing hysterics of last night making for a light-hearted, comical tale to retell. The derailing moments are funny looking back on them, even though they tore Castle apart when they broke up the fantasy he had in his head. But there were redeeming moments, moments that he did actually manage to sweep her off her feet like he wanted to, moments that she couldn't deny she was in love with him. And she feels herself being obvious, clearly looking like she's thinking about those moments as she's softly smiling, looking down into her cup in deep, reflective thought.

"So, what else happened?" Lanie asks after a large sip of her coffee.

Kate looks up to her with a smile. "After we left the restaurant, we decided to just walk to the theater. And when we got out onto the street, he noticed that I was a little chilly. Lanie..." She says, looking away and shaking her head, her heart swelling, "I didn't even say anything. He just took off his coat and put it over my shoulders... like it was the most normal thing in the world. It was the most... chivalrous... gentlemanly... simple thing he could have done."

Lanie smiles a watery smile and puts her hand over her chest again, swooning over her best friends tale.

"And then when he jumped in front of that puddle..." She continues on a soft chuckle. "He just looked like he wanted to punch somebody."

Lanie smiles, imagining a wet Rick Castle deadpanning in the middle of the sidewalk after having just been splashed by a careless cab driver. "So, I take it that that was the topper of the night?"

Kate lets her smirk turn into a bright, face-splitting smile as she thinks of how he lifted her up in his strong arms like she was nothing and carried her off to bed. She clearly gave away a lot of the details as Lanie watches Kate's bottom lip fall in between her teeth. She looks back up to Lanie with a glimmer in her eye. "When we got back to my apartment, he was still sulking because he just felt so bad about everything that happened. He apologized and he..." She says, feeling her heart quiver in her throat at the emotions of the night.

Lanie looks over to her, seeing Kate's eyes glimmer with what she would only describe as pure love. She's been waiting for years to see that look in her friend's eye.

Kate looks back up to Lanie with a smile. "He said he was hoping to... sweep me off my feet."

Lanie coos again, putting a hand over her mouth at how sweet Castle can be under that sauntering, debonair playboy he shows off at the precinct.

"I told him that despite everything that went wrong, I still had a great night. And then... he..." She said, her heart exploding in her chest, warming her soul, "he just scooped me up in his arms and took me to bed."

Lanie's brow shoots up, her eyes going wide in shock. "... And then?"

Kate hasn't told her about the week earlier when she took him to bed. She's keeping that night to themselves after what he told her that night about his past. But last night had an entirely different feeling. More focused, more playful, more intentful, more loving, just... more of everything. "It was incredible, Lanie." She says, her senses filling with the sights, sounds, and touches of the previous night.

"So... did you finally tell him?"

After leaning over, biting down gently on her finger in reflection with a smile teasing the edges of her tingling lips, still buzzing from the feeling of him on them, she looks back up to Lanie with a peering expression. "Tell him what?"

Lanie bugs her eyes, as if it was obvious what she meant. "That you love him."

Kate lets her hand fall limply down in front of her, deadpanning over to Lanie. "I was a little preoccupied, Lanie."

"Well, when _are_ you gonna tell him?"

Being put on the spot, pressured, Kate feels an unfamiliar fear and nervousness prick at the ends of her nerves. "I-I don't know. I haven't really thought about it."

"Oh, yes you have. Don't lie to me, Kate Beckett." Lanie challenges.

Kate rolls her eyes again, "Lanie, we _just_ started dating, and our first date didn't really go too well. So I just don't think that now is really the right time to... pour my heart out like that."

"Well, when are you gonna see him again?"

Kate shrugs her shoulders and slides herself off the stool, moving around the island to refill her cup. "He's supposed to come by again tonight. We're making up for the disaster of last night by just ordering Chinese and watching a movie."

"There you go, it's perfect." Lanie says and raises her hands.

"Lanie, can't we just let things flow naturally? I'll say it when I say it, okay?"

"And when is that gonna be?" Lanie continues to push.

And Kate is starting to get slightly annoyed. They just started dating, can't they just relax into being with each other before getting into the heavy stuff? Just enjoy reading the book before skipping to the end like Lanie wants her to do. Kate lets out a scoff, turning it into a sigh as she meanders back around the island. She's being pushed into a place she doesn't like by Lanie, as usual when it comes to her interfering in her personal life, as it seems she does at every opening the world gives her. Or maybe it's just with Castle. She's probably been internally rooting for him for a while.

"I'll..." She starts, trying to toss her off, but ends up going over phrases in her mind, one after another, each making less and less sense, sounding less and less honest to herself when she says them to herself as a real excuse not to just tell him that she's in love with him. Kate sighs heavily and pushes herself back up onto her stool, looking back down into the rippling coffee in her mug, sitting lazily in her hands. "What if I say it and he doesn't love me back, Lanie?"

Her voice stings her throat, the cold vulnerability making her feel too exposed and unsafe to Lanie's criticizing quips. And with the way Lanie's brow just shot up again, giving her a sardonic smile. "Are you serious?"

"Well, I know that he's..." She starts, pausing to search for the right word for exactly what it is he might feel toward her, " _into_ me, but..." Kate decides to let her self-pitying words fall with a shake of her head before taking an uninterested sip from her cup.

"Girl, do you even _read_ the stuff he writes based on you?"

Kate looks up to her, rationalizing it away as she always does, the way she did whenever Natalie Rhodes came to her when she went in search of why Castle shot her down when she invited him up to her place for the night. "He's a writer, Lanie. He writes fiction."

"Fiction or fantasy?" Lanie pushes again with a coy smile.

Kate scoffs beside herself with feigned confusion. "That's not-"

"Page 105 had to come from somewhere, Kate." Lanie stops her and when her body rocks itself, having that scene between Nikki and Rook almost committed to memory, her nerves flush with heat when she feels his hands on her, all happening in a quick flash, in one quick hitch of a gasping breath.

But she keeps it below the surface, keeping her clever but obvious sanguine about the whole situation hidden. "He was just... responding to market forces. You know... giving the readers what they want."

"What _they_ want or what _he_ wants?" Lanie shoots toward her again, quick-drawing quips to fire back at her, get her back on track.

"Lanie-"

But she's quick to be interrupted, with her friend being tired of chasing Kate's tail for her. "Kate, if you don't know the guy's head over heels for you, you're more blind than I thought."

Kate sighs, insecurity getting too much of the better of her as she taps her nail against the handle of her coffee cup in a skittish tempo. "Alright, I'll..." She starts hesitantly, stopping after the starts to get visions of trying to work them into a situation where it might be comfortable to tell him, "I'll tell him tonight."

* * *

Rick sits at his desk, spinning himself around in his chair with his legs crawling and shaking with anxiousness.

They agreed to six, but he doesn't want to seem overeager and arrive too early. But then again, he doesn't want to arrive right on time, right as the clock hits six. It might send her the wrong message. He could try to go for fashionably late, but how would she perceive that? Like he doesn't care enough for her to even be on time? He wishes he could just leave now and end the debate. But Kate Beckett has always been hard to pin down when it comes to how she might react to different things. It makes it a challenge to write Nikki Heat sometimes.

Sometimes he ends up writing what he wishes she'd do instead of what she would actually do. It always leaves a sour taste of dishonesty in his mouth when he rereads it, always sounds like he's having to sink to just lying when he does that. And he's always worried that one day, she'll read it and call him on it. That he'll one day write something so obvious that it can only be another one of his pathetic fantasies he's let slip into his writing. That she'll one day shoot him down for the dreamer he knows he is.

He's letting his imagination run too rabid. He should probably stop while he's able to, lest he end up an emotionless husk when he arrives at her apartment.

But at least he can rest easy, knowing not much can go wrong in the way of outside forces coming in to throw things off kilter. Just a quiet, easy going night in, sitting on her couch with Chinese food and a movie. He can't screw that up, can he?

He twirls himself around in his chair again, his eyes going to the time on his laptop as his chair spins around in front of his desk. If he leaves now, he might just be a few minutes late if he picks her up a smaller bouquet of flowers. Once his chair spins around to face his bedroom, he jumps up and quickly strides out into the living room, where his mother and Alexis are sitting at the dining table. "Off to meet, Beckett?" Alexis asks.

"Yep." He says, going over to the closet to grab a casual looking jacket to go over his black fleece.

"Do you have your wallet, dear?"

He stops, his hand falling to his side with a tan jacket in his hand as he bites the inside of his lip, looking over to his mother, who is smiling coyly at him. "That is _precisely_ the reason I asked Alexis to pick it up for me and not you." He accuses, pointing a finger at his mother before throwing his jacket over his shoulders.

"You're welcome, Dad." She says with a smile, twirling her pencil in her hands before going back to her homework.

"Call me if you need anything." He says as he quickly jumps towards the door. He prepares to stop at their quip about how he'll have all the time in the world, but he's out the door before they manage to say anything. He's out on the street, a light, breezy stride in his step as he calls another cab, giving him directions to the flower stand on the way to her apartment.

He's excited to see her again. He's enjoying being this close to her a lot more than he thought he might. His love for her has only grown as she finally starts to return his, what just a few weeks ago, was largely unrequited affection. But now that he's able to kiss her, she always chases after him when he starts to pull away, stealing another one from him. She's always eager to snake her arms around his neck and even more eager to press herself against him when he does the same to her midsection.

And last night, besides their whole night being a complete nuclear disaster, she still had a great time... simply because she was with him. If he didn't see her eyes shining up at him, her smile gleaming up at him, he might not have believed her and might have thought she was just saying that to make him better. But... she was being honest... real.

And the look on her face when he hoisted her up in his arms...

He grins to himself as he stops the cabbie and pays him, keeping a very tight and conscious grip on his wallet as he shoves it back into his back pocket. He steps up to the stand, quickly picking out a much smaller bouquet than the one he got her the night before and pays the clerk. "Thanks again for hanging onto my wallet."

The clerk waves a hand at him as he counts out the singles. "You seemed like a guy who needed a favor."

Not knowing if the clerk's statement was meant to be backhanded, he chuckles and steps back into the light bustle of people quickly moving about the sidewalk. He hopes he doesn't embarrass himself by giving her flowers again. But... at this point, how much more can he do to embarrass himself in front of her, really?

He turns the corner to head to her apartment, when a voice is stopping him. "Pretty flowers, Ricky."

The voice cuts into him, stabbing him as his blood quickly chills in his veins, his heart turning to a spikey rock in his chest. He turns around, seeing a man hiding his face behind a newspaper. When the man folds it down, he sees him smirking over to him, clad in a long, black trench coat.

Tommy folds the paper up and puts it under his arm as he pushes off the wall. "They for me?"

* * *

 _A/N: If you need a face to go along with Tommy, I have him pictured as C. Thomas Howell (played The Reaper in Criminal Minds). He has the evil features I was looking for in the character. And also... the cliff hangers! The cliff hangers!_


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: I hope I give you a full picture of who Tommy is in this chapter, hope I created a vivid character for you. Let me know! :)_

* * *

His breath grows hard in his throat as his chest tightens, a tight mix of fear and disbelief snaking itself like venom in his blood.

"What's the matter, Ricky?" Tommy asks with a pout. He always was an arrogant, sarcastic ass.

Castle feels his muscles twinge as he takes another step toward him. He wants to turn and run away, book it down the street as fast as he can, but everything about him seems untrustworthy.

Tommy's feigned pout turns into an evil grin, his teeth gleaming as his eyes burn into him. "You look like you just seen a ghost."

"Tommy..." His voice scratches against his throat.

Tommy lifts his arms up in the air, holding the newspaper in one hand and smiling. "Twenty years and you still recognize me."

His heart is pounding against the inside of his chest as a cold sweat washes over his skin, the hairs on his neck pricking up on end. "It was you."

"You know, Ricky..." He says, taking another step toward Castle and putting his arm around his shoulders, and Castle feels his muscles drain of all strength as Tommy starts slowly walking them down the alley. "I can't help but feel hurt." Tommy says and puts his hand against his chest as he continues to guide Castle down the alley, away from the hustle of pedestrians crowding the sidewalk.

Once they're down the middle of the alley, Castle feels his blood grow cold and his muscles tense, his mind easing into a darkness he hasn't felt in a long time. He stops dead as he tightens his muscles and balling his fists, feeling his knuckles crack.

"After what you did, I expected at least an apology." Tommy says and steps in front of him, his humorous, arrogant air vanishing as his glares over at him. "Even a half-assed one would have been nice."

"You might have gotten one too if I didn't know what that tattoo on your neck really meant."

Tommy smirks as he tosses his head back, showing off the rose tattoo on the left side of his neck. "You like it, huh?" He says, blindly tracing the faded, blurry lines with his fingers. "You know, I could have gotten you one too, Ricky."

"So it's true, then." He says in a low voice, his eyes and brow hardening. "You're really with La Rosa."

"Ass-backwards, Ricky." Tommy says, jerking his head off to the side. "They're with me."

Castle stays silent, his jaw tensing.

"See, after you left me for dead, they pulled me from the wreckage." Tommy starts, clasping his hands together with a smile. "Got both my legs broken and lost a hell of a lot of blood. And because I didn't get pulled out in time by a certain someone," he says and points his fingers into Castle's chest, "it got infected and I had to spend three years in a coma. Surprising, they got good docs, unlike the hacks they stuck us with."

"So, you're pinning that on me."

Tommy's eyes flit off to the side before he shrugs his shoulders. "Well, I can't pin it on the people who sent us down there, Ricky. I killed them years ago."

His breath hitches in his throat as Tommy throws it out there so casually and off-handed, like an afterthought. "Which just leaves me, then."

Tommy smirks evil again, his eyes narrowing with a dark glimmer as he moves his hand up and pats Castle on the cheek. "Bingo."

"After all this time, Tommy? Really? I've heard of holding a grudge, but twenty years is pushing it."

"I might have let it go, but that little incident at our warehouse is forcing me to take steps that I've been wanting to take for a long time."

"I saw you and I know who you're working with. You don't want any undue pressure put on your operations, is that it?"

"I'm sure the cops already know all about it, Ricky." Tommy says in a voice that's radiating with tense anger as he waves the paper in his face, holding it in front of him.

Castle holds Tommy's eyes before snatching it out of his hand and opening it up to page six, feeling his heart twinge, fear and anxiety gripping his spine. With a picture of them from last night, her with his coat over her shoulders, one hand wrapped around his arm, the other twirling a strand of hair around her finger as he smiles forward, walking down the street, the headline reads _More Than Just A Muse?_

"I guess we could call it pillow talk."

Castle looks up to Tommy again for a second before crumpling up the paper angrily in his hands and tosses it to the side. "I haven't told her anything, Tommy."

"Oh, really?" Tommy says with a raised brow.

"I left that life behind me when I got home. I'm a different person now."

"So I hear." Tommy says with a lowered brow and pouted lips, crossing his arms as he leans forward. "You actually got that writing thing to work then, huh? You uh..." He says and leans back, shrugging his shoulders and narrowing his eyes again, "You're pretty well-off, I hear."

Castle's blood turns to fire in his veins as he feels his fist shake he's balling it up so tight. "Is that what you want, Tommy? You want money?"

"I got more money than I know what do to with, Ricky."

"Then what do you want?!" He spits through clenched teeth.

"I want the three years of my _life_ back!" He yells, his alcohol stenched breath wafting into Castle's face. "But since I can't get that, I'll have to go with plan B."

"Just tell me what you want, Tommy! If you're just here to kill me then just do it already."

"Nah, see," Tommy says and puts a hand against Castle's chest, "back when, you had nothing to lose. That's what made you so good. But now..." Tommy says, roving his eyes over Castle again, as if he's taking him in. "Now look at you." Tommy says and snaps the end of Castle's collar. "You got money, you got a beautiful girl, I bet your mom and you are close again. I know you had a lot of resentment against her, sending you off to boarding school like we all were. Hell," Tommy says and lifts his arms in the air with an open smile that's still radiating with darkness, "you even got yourself a beautiful little girl."

Castle's body turns to a tight, flexed wall of boiling hatred as Tommy looks over to him, his open smile curling into a grin.

"What's her name?" Tommy asks, tossing his head back.

But he refuses to answer, his fists shaking and his breath ragged.

"Come on, Ricky, what's your little girl's name?"

His teeth grind as the image of his daughter takes over his mind. "Alexis."

Tommy grins again, nodding his head. "Alexis." He says slowly. "That's a beautiful name."

Castle stomps forward, all his strength consumed in wrenching his fists into Tommy's coat and throwing him against the brick wall, pushing him up off the ground and forcing him back as hard as he can. "If you come anywhere _near_ my daughter-"

" _You'll what, Ricky!?"_ Tommy screams. "You already killed me once, remember?"

"You even _think_ about touching my daughter or _anyone_ I care about, you'll wish you'd stayed dead."

"Then go ahead, Ricky." Tommy says, his voice straining as Castle keeps him pinned against the wall. "Kill me. I know you got it in ya." Tommy reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small phone. "But my men have their orders. If I don't check in in ten minutes, they're set to kill _everyone_ you have, Ricky."

Castle has to force his muscles to relax, to force his hands to release Tommy's collar, but his body is still vibrating with anger, even as Tommy is shaking himself off, dusting off his shoulder with the back of his hand. "What do you _want,_ Tommy?"

He just chuckles in response, shooting him another evil smirk as his eyes go down the alley and toward the street. "In due time, Ricky. All in due time."

"This isn't over." He says and Tommy starts out of the alley.

Once he's out on the sidewalk, he turns back and looks at him. Castle's body tenses, his heart still a cold, angry stone. "It'd break my heart if it was, Ricky."

Tommy vanishes out of sight as another slew of pedestrians pass in front of him.

* * *

Kate checks her watch again, seeing just two minutes have passed since the last time she checked it. It's fine, he's just a little late. He can be late once.

Pacing restlessly in front of her couch, she jumps when a rapid, loud knock comes pounding on her door. She smiles nonetheless and quickly moves to answer it, soothing over her shirt, slightly nervous at her apperance, being dressed only in a thin grey t-shirt and a pair of black yoga pants, barefoot. The pushes her hair behind her ear as she unlocks her door and turns the knob to let him in. The door opens and her smile brightens at the sight of him. "Hey, your-"

She's silenced by his forceful lips slamming against her. Her breath hitches violently in her throat as her skin flushes with an intense wave of excitement, his hand quickly cupping her cheek and tenderly yet passionately pulling her into him. It's just a quick second of his satin soft lips pressing against hers that she feels her shocked body start melting into him. Her breath starts to move out of her lungs in a shaky stutter, her hands landing weakly on the back of his arms as he kisses her lovingly. He lets her lips go for a second and she goes chasing after him, but her ears ring at the sound of his soiled breath drawing in. But she kisses him tenderly in return, softly grasping his biceps.

He pulls back after another long, loving kiss and keeps his hand cupping her cheek while he moves his other hand up and brushes her hair behind her ear with his finger. "Are you okay?" He asks in a scared voice.

Her brow knits together in instant worry. "Of course, I'm fine, Castle." She reassures him and folds her hands into his, pulling him off her to ease him down. "What's going on?"

His eyes quickly go behind him and he closes the door, quickly locking both locks before turning back to her. "I need your help."

Castle is darting passed her and into her kitchen in a flash while she's left standing in the foyer of her apartment with nothing but questions. She finds it in her to follow him after a second. "Castle, what is it? You look like you're about to have a heart attack." She says as she comes into her kitchen, seeing him with a pen in his hand writing something down on what looks like a napkin.

"There's something I didn't tell you, Kate."

Her heart squeezes inside her chest at his words, the thought of him having even more secrets that he didn't share with her. She's still trying to work him through the ones he's already told her. The words are washed from her mind as she silently paces toward him.

"Last week," He starts, his eyes finding her as he continues to scratch his pen across the napkin. "The guys that ambushed us at the warehouse. They had a tattoo on their necks that I've seen before." He says and shoves the napkin across the island toward her as he quickly digs his phone out of the pocket of his jacket.

She takes another shaky step forward and looks down at the napkin, seeing a haphazardly drawn rose with a dagger going through it diagonally. She looks up to him and sees him with his phone to his ear.

"It's the tattoo of a group called RDLM." He says, running a ragged hand through his hair. "It's short for Rosa De La Muerta."

"Rosa de... The Death Rose?" She translates in her head.

"They're the group I fought in Central America. Espo!" He says, turning away from her. "Listen, I need you to get to the loft as fast as you can."

"Castle." She says, taking another step toward him, silently demanding answers.

"I'll explain everything when Beckett and I get there."

"Get there? Castle, what the hell is going on?"

"My mother should be there, but Alexis is going to Ashely's for dinner and I need to know that she's safe."

"Castle!" She shouts.

His eyes find hers again and she can see fear and panic crackle in his iris, as if silently telling her that he needs all the help she can offer him. "I'll text Ryan Ashely's address. If she's there already, she'll be safe, if not..." His voice shakes and quivers in his throat as his eyes quickly brims with tears. "Thanks, Javier." He says and presses his thumb against the screen and lets his phone fall to the island with a clatter.

"Castle, what the hell is going on here? What's happened to Alexis? Is she alright?"

"Last week, in the warehouse, when I went after those guys that ambushed us, I recognized their tattoos and ran after them. After I took one of them down, I ran outside and saw someone with them that I didn't think existed anymore. But now he's back."

She takes another step forward, pacing her way toward him the entire time he's explaining with a deep furrow in her brow. "Who?"

"I-I don't know how it happened, but Tommy survived and now is in control of RDLM. And now, I'm afraid he's coming after my family. Kate..." He says, his voice quivering as if he's on the verge of a complete breakdown. "I don't know what to do."

His eyes are brimming red, he looks so vulnerable and scared, the same way he did the night he told her about all this.

"I need your help."

* * *

 _A/N: (Side note, semi-unrelated) I've always found it a little amusing that people can suspend reality so much while they watch the show, but not when they read fanfiction. You realize that you watched a 5 ft 6, 105 pound asian woman take on a dozen fully grown behemoths all at once and not drop a bead of sweat in season 7 and probably didn't say shit? Or like in the series finale, when the big baddy said his gun was plastic, which wouldn't be possible considering it would either explode in your hand with one shot, or the chamber would melt after the first bullet left the barrel. Or when in that same episode, they used "truth serum" on Castle, which doesn't exist and is scientifically "impossible" to force someone to tell a certain truth against their will._

 _That's the end of my rant. Sorry if it annoyed you. :)_


	15. Chapter 15

_A/N: Continuing this story again. Just finished A Whole New Light last night, for those of you not reading that. If you're anything like me, you probably don't like reading incomplete stories (big hypocrite considering this is one I haven't finished yet). So check that one out on my profile if you want. But I have this one mostly fixed. Went back and fixed a few things, but I may have missed some. This chapter may move a little slow, but it will gain speed. So, ignore the anon reviews saying the story needs to move faster._

 _Other than that, let me know what you think. :)_

* * *

 _"I never meant to hurt you, Kate."_

 _"You can't accidentally sleep with someone, Josh. You did it on purpose."_

 _"I didn't mean it like that. I... but Kate, you're not exactly acting hurt."_

 _"You betrayed my trust. Of course, I'm hurt. But... I mean, I'm having a hard time being heartbroken about it."_ She remembers crossing her arms and looking away when she said that. As if she was on the defensive.

 _"Well... maybe that's because your heart already belongs to someone else."_

 _"What are you talking about?"_

 _"Come on, Kate. I've seen the way he looks at you."_

 _"It's not like that, Josh."_ She can also remember wanting to take back her reply. She knew who he was talking about, but reacted to it out of instinct.

 _"Kate, I know you see it. I mean... I've seen some bad cases of hypothermia, but that was one of the worst. And when the first word that he says is 'Beckett', and he doesn't even care about his own health... I care about you, Kate, but I could never care about you as much as he does. And I think we can both finally agree that we were fooling ourselves a little, trying to give this another shot."_

She can remember as she stares out the window in the living room of his loft that she wasn't thinking of that relationship, but this one. _"Yeah."_

 _"Kate, I really am sorry that this-"_

 _"Josh, just..."_ She remembers the way she cut him off, simply not wanting to think of another man with him still in her apartment. She wanted to think about him alone until Lanie showed up that day. " _Just go, okay?"_

"Mom!" She hears Castle call from his office.

Kate turns from her spot looking out the window of the loft just in time to see Martha speed her way out of Castle's office with wide red eyes. Her jewelry jangles hurriedly around her wrists and neck as she takes hold of the banister and starts quickly up the stairs. "Martha?" Kate tries in a worried voice.

Martha lets out a small sound in a choked voice, waving her hand behind her just before she disappears upstairs. Kate lets out a sigh and pushes her hair back, hearing Esposito do the same from his place sitting at the island with a stern glare etched onto his face. It's another moment before Kate hears a door close hard from upstairs, making her jump slightly at the sudden sound. Kate steps forward and looks through the door and into his office.

She's worried about him. She's never heard him call Martha 'mom' before. It's always been 'mother'. When she sees his face, her heart aches. He looks almost broken. Alexis is standing in front of him and he has his hands on her arms, looking down at her with a sad brow. She sees his eyes close and his head nod, then watches as he pulls his daughter forward and wraps his arms around her shoulders. Alexis clearly returns his hug, burying her face in her father's chest while he puts his cheek down on her head. The amount those two love each other always astounds her.

Castle rubs his daughter's back a few times before pulling back and sending her a sad smile. She reads his lips as he says the words 'I love you', then sees Alexis turn out of his office. Kate quickly busies herself and turns around, looking back out the window. She hears Alexis soft footsteps come closer to her. "Detective Beckett?"

Kate turns with a raised brow, trying not to force a smile.

"Is it true that we're in danger?"

Kate opens her mouth, but ends up choking on words and turns to Esposito, who just slid down from the stool at the island. "I still have to ask your dad a few more questions about what he saw, but... I think it's best to take precautions."

Alexis nods and looks away to the floor for a moment. She's clearly scared, but Kate can tell when a daughter is worried about her father. She's seen it in herself too many times. "My dad said that he's going to hire bodyguards for us. He wants one to come to school with me. Is... is that really necessary?"

"He just wants to make sure you guys are safe, that's all." Kate says with as reassuring of a smile as she can hope for. "In the mean time, it might be for the best until we can figure out what these people want."

Alexis nods again and looks down at the floor. There's a thick silence between her, Kate, and Esposito as they hope they can offer more support than the girl is accepting right now. And after another silent moment, she looks up between her and Esposito. "H-He told me to ask about a ride to school tomorrow. He didn't want me to walk."

Kate smiles warmly again and nods. "Well, I think your dad can cash in a few favors he's earned with us."

"I can take you, Alexis." Espo says quickly.

Kate smiles over to Javi, who's giving Castle's daughter a friendly smile. "Thank you, Detective Esposito." Alexis says, properly professional, and turns after giving both of them as much of a smile as she can seem to muster for herself.

Kate and Javi are both silent as they wait for Alexis to scale the stairs. "Thanks, Javi."

"Don't mention it." He says casually. Javi meanders around in front of her while Kate contemplates. She knows she should probably be focused on the people coming after him, on this Tommy character, and part of her feels guilty because she's not. She just can't seem to take her mind off of him. "You want a detail outside?"

"No, I'm gonna stay here for the night." She clenches herself and prepares for the look she knows Espo is sending her, but as she changes a glance in his direction, all he does is nod, seeming to understand, if not letting it go over his head.

"Well, I sent those names you gave us down to gangs. They're gonna get started in the morning. And since Castle was able to give us a name, Captain wants us to run it down in the morning and see what we can get." He explains as he heads for the door with Kate slowly following him.

"I'll see if Castle can tell us anything else about him. Maybe he can shed some light as to where he might be hiding."

Espo simply nods his head and turns to head out the door. She can tell he has something to say, but can also tell he knows it's not the right time to say whatever it is. With a wave of his hand over his shoulder, Esposito is heading down the hall and Kate is sliding the door shut behind him, clicking both locks in place. She takes a breath to strengthen herself and looks towards the open door to his office, committing herself to leave the case and the details for another time. He needs someone right now.

Kate slowly makes her way toward his office, slipping out of her heels and shedding her coat so she's just in a pair of black slacks and a blue long-sleeved shirt, padding her way into his office. She takes a quick survey of the darkened space, seeing a medium-sized metal box sitting in the center of his desk, with another smaller box sitting next to it. She takes a few steps forward and sees a pristine Colt 1911 laying on his desk with the barrel pointed toward the wall.

"Careful," His voice says from her left. She quickly spins to find him sitting beneath the skylight of the nook, hunched over with a black sweatshirt on, holding a picture frame in his hands. "It's loaded."

She forces a small smile and a half-hearted chuckle. "Does this mean you can finally stop taking my backup piece?"

"And give up the one excuse I have to grab onto your legs?" He says in a cocky tone.

She can't help but roll her eyes with a fighting smile and slowly meander her way over to him. "We're together now, Castle. You don't need an excuse." She says just as she's sitting down next to him. And as if she gave him an invitation, his hand lands on her thigh right as she sits down, his fingers splaying out over her leg and his thumb petting her.

Looking down at the picture he's holding, that of him giving Alexis a piggyback ride, she lets him pet her leg before deciding to start pulling it out of him. "I see Martha didn't take it too well."

Castle shakes his head a bit, not tearing his eyes away from the picture in his hand. "She didn't like hearing that there was a lot more I didn't like about my childhood than she thought."

Her heart starts to edge into her throat. "You said that?"

He lets out another small breath and his hand petting her leg comes to a stop, simply resting on her thigh. "When she asked me how I didn't think of her when I signed up, I said it was thinking of her that made me join at all."

She can feel her heart constrict. This is an honesty she didn't think he had in him. She didn't know he had this in him at all. "Rick..."

"You didn't know what it was like... Kate. Getting passed on to babysitters and nannies, being sent to boarding school after boarding school. I know now that she was doing the best with what she was given, but... when I was at that graduation and I saw everybody else there with their father's and their big families all there for their big day..." He says, checking himself after his voice shakes. "Yes, there was a time that I resented her for not giving that to me, and that was the time Tommy offered me the job. And suffice it to say... she didn't like hearing that too much."

"Rick," She starts, placing her hand gently on top of his over her leg, "I mean, she's around for you now, right?"

" _Now..._ she's around, yes." He corrects her, a slight edge of anger coming into his voice as he looks at her from the side of his eyes. "She's around now simply because she can be. But growing up, I spent most of my time stranded in libraries because she would be performing. She wasn't around then like she is now."

Kate nods, never hearing this type of sadness in his voice before. "But," She starts again, not really wanting to challenge him on it, "you can't blame her for all this, Castle."

"No, I'm not." He dismisses her, shaking his head but returning his gaze quickly back down to the picture still in his hand. "I was the one who signed the contract. At the end of the day, it was my decision that I have to live with. But she asked how I ever felt the need to and I answered. Maybe... a little too honestly."

"Come on, Castle. Your mother knows you love her." Kate says, leaning over and bumping into his shoulder.

All he does is let out a heavy sigh and soulfully gaze down at the picture of him and Alexis, starting to brush the pad of his thumb over Alexis' face. "I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost her, Kate. When Tommy threatened her, I-" He cuts himself off, gritting and showing his teeth in a hateful stare as he looks away from the picture. "I wanted to kill him, Kate."

"Hey," She says softly, taking his hand still sitting on her leg and petting his forearm with the other, "everything's gonna be fine."

Rick's eyes drift shut and he gives her leg a quick squeeze, maybe to make sure she's still there. "You know... it's because of my childhood that I try as hard as I do with Alexis." He says and stands the frame up next to him on the cushion of one of the pillows and leans back against the window of the nook. "I know what I wanted in a father growing up, and I've tried my hardest to be that for my daughter. And when Meredith left us, a part of me felt that I'd failed because I couldn't give Alexis her mother. But after a while... it became me and her against the world."

For the first time all day, she sees a genuine smile start to sneak onto his handsome face. And it brings one to her own face as well, watching his eyes drift off into memory.

"The time between Meredith leaving and Gina coming in was some of the best days of my life. I got to be the devoted father I always wanted growing up. And I never thought of my time spent with Tommy again."

And as quickly as it came, his smile fades back into a haunted frown, with a deep, stinging sadness starting to brim in his eyes.

He shakes his head and looks down to the picture frame he'd set down next to him. "I never thought that life would come back to haunt me like this, Kate."

Kate looks down to her lap, then moves to curl her legs up to her chest and spin herself to put her back against the side wall of the nook. "You know, it was the way you are with Alexis that convinced me there was different person underneath what you showed everyone."

That earns her his eyes, as sad and vulnerable as they are. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Kate shrugs, a smile teasing the edges of her lips, "normally, you're this arrogant, self-centered, ego-driven child."

"Ease up with the compliments. You're gonna make me blush." He says in a deadpan voice.

"No, but..." She says, petting his forearm that's laying at her feet. "When Alexis would come around, you were suddenly this selfless, loving, caring father who was completely devoted to the people he loves. And I don't get to see that too often." She says on a shrug. "It makes me fall for you pretty quick when I do." She says playfully, kicking her foot against his arm.

There's a smile that quickly brightens his features as he laughs silently with her. His hand reaches up again and slides down her leg and pets her thigh. "I just want my family to be safe again."

Kate nods as his hand falls off her leg and back down to the cushion. "Well," She starts and uncurls her legs from her chest and stands up, taking his hand in hers. "I want to spend the night... lying in the arms of the man I love."

His eyes fly widely up to her, his sad expression falling away to a wide-eyed stare. He slowly pushes himself up to his feet but she doesn't step away and he ends up standing just inches away from her. "You... mean me... right?"

Kate raises one side of her brow, "I don't think I see anyone else here, Castle." She tells him and slides her hands up his arms and across his shoulders.

He lets out the breath he'd been holding and she can feel the tension melt off his muscles as he does, giving her a relaxed, bright-eyed smile. His hands pull at her sides and she doesn't give him a fight and drifts into him, pressing her lips tenderly to his in a soft, loving kiss. Her body slowly curls with electricity just as her fingers slide into his hair and she gives him more of her lips.

Her heart swells to bursting when she feels him engulf her in his arms for the night.


	16. Chapter 16

_A/N:Accidentally posted another ch 16 for another story as this one. Replaced it, but it's taking time to get updated it. For anyone reading this early, I know, hold the angry reviews. Now, to tend to the things I smashed in frustration. :)_

* * *

Castle chokes on the dust and smoke wafting violently through the hot, intensely humid air. He hears the other men shouting and yelling orders from down the road while bullets zing and pang off the transport truck he's kneeling behind. His hands squeeze the grip and the magazine well of his rifle as his lungs take in toxic, burning rubber filled air from the fires on the trucks ahead of the road. His senses are in complete overload as the jungle around him is erupting and exploding with muzzle flare, like giant fireflies wanting nothing more than his death.

His heartbeat is slamming in his chest, hammering like a drill against his ribs.

The jungle around him explodes with a shockwave, deafening all of his overloaded senses, making everything stop for just a split second.

" _Ricky!"_ He hears a voice yell from ahead of the road.

Another bullet pangs off the metal just above his head as he peaks out to look up the road, to see Tommy lying pinned underneath the overturned truck, pulling at his leg. He rolls himself back over and takes a breath, feeling the impact of bullets hitting rapidly against the side of the transport. "I'm sorry, Tommy!" He yells back and stands up to run down the road.

" _Dad!"_ Alexis' voice yells out.

He stops dead in his tracks as bullets fly past him. His blood thickening and horror making his entire body ignite, he turns to see her lying on the ground, pinned by the truck, tears running down her fear-stricken face, and her hand stretched out, begging for help. "Alexis!"

" _Dad, help me!"_ Her voice shrieks out to him.

His heart slamming, he takes off running toward her, but she doesn't get any closer. "Alexis!" He yells again.

" _Dad, please, help me!"_

His legs carry him as fast as he can to his trapped daughter, but she doesn't get any closer. "Alexis, I'm coming!"

" _Dad, no, please, don't leave me!"_

"I'm coming, sweetie! Hang on!" He shouts back, but he still isn't any closer.

" _Da-ad!"_ She screams again, just before an explosion bangs in front of him.

" _Alexis!"_

Castle wakes up with a gasp, jumping upright in bed as his lungs plead for air. His heart is still slamming inside of his chest and his emotions are running wild. His mind is swirling but centered around finding his daughter, making sure she's safe. He pulls at the thin cotton of his t-shirt, tugging and the collar and chest the get his skin a dose of cool air before flipping the covers off his legs and getting to his feet as quickly and ungracefully as he can. He hears the bed next to him start to shift until he hears his partner's sleepy voice call out to him. "What's going on, babe?"

He's staggering away from the bed as he answers. "I-I have to check on Alexis."

He can hear the covers shift again as he's moving out the side door to his bedroom and out into the foyer of the loft, quickly moving around the banister and up the stairs on legs that feel too weak to be standing upright. What feels like an all too close memory of an all too real event isn't playing out like a dream inside of his head. His body is still wrenching and slouching from the humid, stench-filled air of that war-zoned jungle. The image of his little girl trapped under that truck is cemented in his mind, his dream showing him doing the one thing he was always terrified of and failing as a father to Alexis.

He softens his footsteps as he nears his daughter's bedroom door. There's an emotional lump in his throat as he grips the knob with a cold, sweaty hand. Carefully, he turns the knob slow enough to wear the gears inside make as little noise as possible and pushes the door open. Once his eyes set upon the porcelain face and red hair of his little girl, lying in bed fast asleep, all the fears and anguish wash away the instant he sees the rise and fall of her covers.

He lets out a long, quiet breath as he gazes at her, his mind ridding the images of his dream by remembering when this same little girl would sneak downstairs, clad in one of her dad's t-shirts with monkey-bunkey hanging from her hand, lifting the covers at the foot of his bed and crawling inside next to her father. After Meredith left them and it was just him and Alexis, he had more fun then as a father than he ever thought possible. Never feeling guilty because her mother didn't get to spend as much time with her daughter as he did, feeling selfish for wanting to spend time with her instead of his wife.

Alexis shifts herself in bed and burrows herself deeper into the covers and he takes that as his cue to slide the door shut, a warm smile playing across his face. His little girl is safe, sleeping soundly into the same bed he's remembering tucking her into and lifting the covers up underneath to check for monsters every night during her childhood. Even when she was old enough to be rational and her childhood imagination wasn't too afraid of the dark, she'd ask him to check for monsters but stopped whenever Gina entered their lives.

It was a tradition they both upheld, a ritual of sorts between the two of them. Her asking her father if he'd always be there to protect her, to test him and see if he'd slay dragons and move mountains to keep her safe, it became a way of seeing if he'd uphold his promises and duties as her father, even if it was doing something as simple as looking into the darkness under her bed, and telling her that she could sleep soundly, knowing that the monsters weren't there and that he'd always be there to save her from them if they ever were.

As he descends the stairs, having the grab the railing tightly to avoid tumbling down them as the adrenaline drains from his body, he looks across the expanse of the loft, hearing rain start to fall against the roof and skylight. His feet land heavily against the hardwood floor and he lethargically makes his way into the kitchen, turning on the sink and splashing his tired face with cold water and running his wet hands through his matted, uncombed hair. Castle lets out a long breath and moves back through the living room and into his office.

His mind sends another barrage of images into his brain once he hears a soft clap of thunder shudder through the sky outside the loft. And it's then that his chest folds inwardly and he has to move to steady himself against his desk and plop himself down into his office chair. His eyes fall upon the tumbler and decanter sitting at the edge of his desk, left over from the last time he's needed a drink due to emotional turmoil. He rolls his eyes to himself at the thought and leans forward, flipping open his laptop and hitting two fingers down against the mousepad to wake it up.

"Hey," Her soft, velvety voice says from the door to his bedroom.

He looks over and feels his tightened muscles relax at the sight of her, wrapping his flannel shirt around her shoulders with a tight-fitting tank top that hugs against her slender body and a pair of long, grey sweatpants that hangs loosely from her shapely hips. Her face is scrunched together from having just woken up and her still soft, graceful curls that tumble down her shoulders are twisted together and tangled.

"Hey," he responds and looks back down to his screen, opening up a word document.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her cross her arms over her stomach and lean against the doorway. "You're not coming back to bed?"

He looks over to her, then looks past her and to the bed, where just minutes ago, he awoke from a nightmare that still haunts him. The idea that the dream might continue if he were to go back to sleep is taunting him enough to want to stay awake, even if going back to bed meant getting to cuddle up next to the woman he loves. "No, I-I just uhm..." He says, looking back to the screen of his laptop with a concentrated stare. "I just need to get a few thoughts down, is all."

He hears her deep sigh and hears the floorboards creak under her feet as she shoves off the door jam and moves over to his desk. She turns and leans back against the edge of his desk, gazing down at him. "Castle," she starts, hoping to at least garner his attention away from his laptop, but continues with it fails, "I could hear you muttering in your sleep."

He chooses not to respond to that and decides to simply wait for the Word document to finish loading.

"Were you having a nightmare?" She asks, trying her hardest not to sound accusatory. She doesn't want him to shut her out. After he looks down to the keyboard of his laptop and puts his fingers down to the keys, she tries again. "Was it about Alexis?" She asks, knowing full well the answer.

"I don't want to talk about it." He says in a low, guttural voice.

Kate decides to simply nod, understanding his shutting her out. It hurts, but she's aware enough of this feeling, is familiar enough with it to know it's not her fault or doing, simply his need to emotionally armor up against anything, even if it means against her in the process. After another moment of watching the shadows cast against his face, she speaks. "Alexis said you were gonna hire bodyguards for them?"

He takes in a steadying breath and begins to clack away at the keyboard, typing out incoherent ramblings of what he saw in his dream. "The school shouldn't have a problem with it. Some of their other, more... 'high profile'," he says in air quotes, "students have bodyguards. I would _like_ to do it myself, but I'm going to have to save Alexis the embarrassment of that."

Kate feels a chuckle rising in her throat, making her smile. "Well, you embarrass me enough, maybe you could give her a dose once in a while."

There's a hint of a smile that lifts one side of his mouth. "I may be having a bit of an identity crisis right now, Beckett, but I am still your partner."

Kate wants to lean forward, to push him back in his chair and sit in his lap. She can picture herself doing so and running her hand over his shoulders and down his jaw, pulling him in for a deep, passionate kiss. But she settles for the words she would say after, "You're not having an identity crisis, Castle." She reassures him.

"Kate, just a few days ago, the thing I had to worry most about was perfect little Dr. Motorcyle boy keeping you forever. Now, I just had a dream of not being able to save my own daughter." He begins in a strained voice. And suddenly, his hand grips the top of his laptop and slams it closed, making her jump slightly at the noise. "I mean, if I can leave behind the guy who I thought to be my best friend at the time, whose to say that I won't..." He seems to cut himself off then, forcing himself not even to finish the thought in his head.

And seeing an opening, knowing that dragging out another emotional conversation where she tries to repair the damage done would be pointless, she begins her investigation. "What else can you tell me about him?"

Castle sighs heavily and sighs, tossing himself back in his chair. "He was uh... was just a few years older than I was. He was always in trouble but still managed to make it to graduation. Some people said he tried to join the military, but washed out. When he offered me the job in private security, he took me on and I learned pretty quickly. The training the company gave us was mostly basic, just enough for us to be able to do our jobs. But Tommy was always more aggressive. He would always push us farther than the instructors would when we'd spare, or when we'd do drills. He was always a pretty angry guy, but I tried to temper as much as I could."

Kate nods, tucking the details away in her mind. "What about this gang? What do you know about them?"

Castle's expression shifts then, from sorrow to bitterness. It's the slightest shift but she can see it clearly in his eyes. "They were the muscle in the area before we were hired. We established our presence pretty easily, but... every so often," he shifts, his voice trembling with fear, "one of the workers or occasionally, one of the other guys would disappear. And after a day or so... we'd receive their head... in a box."

She hardens herself at his storytelling, feeling an odd sense of emptiness. Her years as a homicide detective have tempered her against gory details such as this. But this is a story from his youth, from his life as a young adult.

"They were tactical, military-style training. They were mostly in the business of drugs when I dealt with them, but their methods were barbaric."

"And you have no idea how Tommy got to be their leader?" She asks quickly.

"No," He says, scrubbing his face roughly. "He said they pulled him from the wreckage of the ambush. He said he spent three years in a coma from his injuries. Maybe they kept him alive because they thought he had money or information, I don't know, but... if I'm being honest, Kate. I'm not at all surprised. RDLM always hoped for the worst in people. It's what they needed for their operations. And Tommy..." He sighs with a shake of his head.

Kate nods again, letting the silence be filled with nothing more than the storm passing violently over the city. The rain clattering against the roof and windows is soothing in a way. "Well, we're gonna have gangs send us anything they can on RDLM, and I'm going in tomorrow to dig up what I can on this Thomas Wayde character."

"Actually," His voice interrupts her, sounding scared and small, "do you think you could stay here? While Alexis is at school, I'm going to a few people I trust and find her and my mother some protection. And I was hoping that you'd... sort of... stay here," he drags out, sounding scared to ask her this request, "and just, be here with my mother. She's taking all of this pretty rough and I don't want to leave her alone."

Kate sends him a warm smile, "Sure." She says, uncrossing her arms. Castle nods and looks back down to his desk. "And Castle," She says, gaining herself his eyes again, "you know who you are."

He lets out a breath from his nose and shakes his head. "I'm not so sure anymore, Kate. I came back home and threw myself into writing. Then I met Kyra, and her leaving me, i-it just... then Meredith cheating on me... now, suddenly, I'm back to being in the jungle as a mercenary."

And Kate, sensing her lover's heartache, finally shoves off the edge of his desk and sits herself down onto his lap and runs her hands over the expanse of his tense shoulders and down his jaw. "Well, I know who you are. You," She begins, taking in a long breath, feeling her heart start pulling herself closer and closer emotionally toward him, "are a great guy... with a big heart, great hair," she says with an amused smile as she traces the strands of hair along his forehead with her fingernail, "with a great girlfriend, whom you are going to come back to bed with, because she's tired."

His amused, bright smile lights up his face in an instant and he leans forward, laying his head down onto her lips as she kissing him while she pets his hair. He lays there for a minute, letting her weave her fingers gently through his hair. "We're gonna end this, Kate." He says in a low voice, pulling back. "The only way to put this all behind me is to stop him. I don't want to lose anyone else I care about because I'm too afraid to act."

"And I don't want to lose _you,_ Rick." She says, cupping his jaw with concern laced heavily into her eyes. "I just got you."

"And I just got _you,_ Kate." He says, his eyes shifting again into an eery darkness, that despite them her sitting in his lap with their arms lovingly around each other, makes him feel miles away. "and I'm not letting him take you away from me."


End file.
